Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE: CUK): The Best-Of-Breed For Investing?

Aristeia Capital LLC recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE:CUK). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Cyclical company by 0.25% to 11.28 million shares with purchase of 28090.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 6.07% valued currently at $93.81 million. In addition, Norges Bank Investment Management raised its holdings by 3.27 million to 3.64 million shares. And BofA Securities, Inc. has lifted its position by 15.48% or 0.46 million shares – to 3.45 million shares.

With over 1.62 million Carnival Corporation & plc (CUK) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $9.82 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $15.89 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 15.26% and its price on 05/23/23 lost nearly -1.60%. Currently, there are 1.18B common shares owned by the public and among those 144.55M shares have been available to trade.

An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 21 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for CUK have a consensus price objective of $11.09. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $18.00 and a low of $6.80. But an upside of 45.44% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $11.00.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in Carnival Corporation & plc are KLP AksjeGlobal Indeks, DFA International Core Equity Por, and MSF Global Opportunities – WorldS. KLP AksjeGlobal Indeks owns 0.15 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.25 million. MSF Global Opportunities – WorldS bought 24000.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 24000.0 shares at a value of $0.2 million. MSF Global Opportunities – WorldS now owns shares totaling to 0.01% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE: CUK) opened at $9.84, down -$0.14 from a prior closing price of $9.98. However, the script later moved the day high at 10.23, down -1.60%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 6.39% and -2.00% over the past three months. CUK shares are trading 36.58% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -19.71% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $5.43 and touched a high of $13.11 over the same period. CUK has an average intraday trading volume of 1.90 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 9.22%, 12.53%, and 13.43% respectively.

Institutional ownership of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE: CUK) shares accounts for 20.80% of the company’s 1.18B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 0.20%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 18.24% and — respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $14.13B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 2.23. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$4.16. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 4.54% over the week and 4.55% over the month.

Analysts forecast that Carnival Corporation & plc (CUK) will achieve an EPS of $0 for the current quarter, $0 for the next quarter and $1.46 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 39.00%, and 2185.70% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 13.40% over the next five years, compared to -28.00% over the past 5-year period.

Specifically, 7 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 9 of the 21 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”