Carnival Stock Questions

[CruisinDawn]

Thinking about buying Carnival stock to take advantage of the stockholder benefits. BESIDES it's price is there any downside to this purchase? We have two Carnival cruises booked already and plan to do more on Carnival or their other brands once my husband retires. I see you can't cash out the obc in the casino or use for gratuities. Anything else one should know before buying for the long term at this point?

 

BonVoyage

Dawna

[coevan]

Have you researched Carnival stock? Are you a regular investor in the stock market? Spending $6500 to get a $100 OBC is not a great idea. I have been a CCL stockholder for many years, however I am fairly heavily invested in the market. I bought CCL several years ago at $35, so it's worked out well for me.

[NavarreCruiser]

I have owned Carnival stock for many years. The dividend is adequate (a little over 2%) but the onboard credit for cruising pays me way more than the dividend. The stock tends to be more volatile than the S&P 500 index but over the long run, it has done fine.

 

You can use OBC for tips I do it on most every cruise. And if you load some OBC on to a slot machine and play for a while (opinions vary as to how much if any you need to play) you can then cash out all remaining fund through the cashier.

[cellfree]

We have had the required number of shares for the last several years. It has worked great for us. The money goes onto your Sign and Sail and we have never had any problem with "how" it is applied - it has been applied to gratuities in the past - also when we have used our Sign and Sail in the Casino (ie taking $50 out of our on board account) it has taken the funds from the money that is sitting in our account. Unless I am missing something, we have never had any problem with the funds being used. Glad we bought it when we did, it has consistently gone up in price.

[BNBR]

The downside is that Carnival stock, historically, performs so much worse than Royals that you are better off getting RCI and using the gains to pay for your next Carnival cruise :)

[CruisinDawn]

Have you researched Carnival stock? Are you a regular investor in the stock market? Spending $6500 to get a $100 OBC is not a great idea. I have been a CCL stockholder for many years, however I am fairly heavily invested in the market. I bought CCL several years ago at $35, so it's worked out well for me.

Yes & yes but my thought was 3 cruises a year at $100 each would be like a 5% yearly return + the 2% dividend. The money is making less then that where it is now. I don't plan on scaling back cruising any time soon but instead plan on ramping it up when my husband retires in 4 years. At 50 we still have a bunch of cruising years ahead of us. This would definitely be a long term investment but I can't help but be concerned Carnival can do like Royal did and take the benefit away then bring it back with restrictions.

 

Thanks for the info on being able to use it on gratuities & casino.

 

Thanks for everyone's input. New to Carnival & now that we can drive to the port we are so excited about our new adventures in cruising this brand. :cool:

 

Will give it some thought,

Dawna

[coevan]

We cruised a B2B in 2016, $200 B2B in 2016, $200 and our 2018 14 day Panama Canal is $250, not bad, that's $650

The only negative with cruise and airline stock, if the is terrorism in the travel industry, the whole industry takes a big dive.

[riffatsea]

Carnival Corporation stock has been making new highs each day lately!

It is not the best time to buy at its top but having it has been great!!

We bought more as a good investment and not just for the OBC.

Who told you that you cannot use it for tips??? That is not correct!

In fact when you have OBC it gets used for tips before you may have a chance to use it for other things.

[tallyho8]

The downside is that Carnival stock, historically, performs so much worse than Royals that you are better off getting RCI and using the gains to pay for your next Carnival cruise :)

 

I don't know where you get your figures from but Royals stock has risen 1097.5% since their IPO and Carnivals stock has risen 1575.68% since their IPO.

 

Since I bought my Carnival stock I have gotten more in OBC and dividends than the price I paid for the stock so even if the stock went down to $0 tomorrow, I would still be ahead.

 

Since Carnival stock is at record highs right now it might not be the best time to invest especially if you just wanted it for a short term.

[BNBR]

I don't know where you get your figures from but Royals stock has risen 1097.5% since their IPO and Carnivals stock has risen 1575.68% since their IPO.

 

Since I bought my Carnival stock I have gotten more in OBC and dividends than the price I paid for the stock so even if the stock went down to $0 tomorrow, I would still be ahead.

 

Since Carnival stock is at record highs right now it might not be the best time to invest especially if you just wanted it for a short term.

 

Royal's stock has gone from $8 to $110. A gain of $102 per share since 1993. Over the same period of time, Carnival started at the same $8 in 1993 and is now at a whopping $65. I may not be a math expert, but $110 is significantly higher than $65....

 

 

In just the last year, Royal is up 46%, Carnival up 35%... again, I may not be a math expert......

 

Yeah, sure, if you happened to buy CCL in 1990, you've done pretty well.... for the rest of us... RCL has vastly outperformed over the last 25 years.

[GROUCHPUSS]

You can have a bunch of cruises booked and buy the stock send in the paperwork and then sell the stock and still use the same paperwork for I think 3 more months.

[SadieN]

Carnival Corporation stock has been making new highs each day lately!

 

It is not the best time to buy at its top but having it has been great!!

 

We bought more as a good investment and not just for the OBC.

 

Who told you that you cannot use it for tips??? That is not correct!

 

In fact when you have OBC it gets used for tips before you may have a chance to use it for other things.

 

 

 

 

People get confused about gratuities and OBC.

 

Cannot prepay gratuities before the cruise with OBC. Just like you cannot use OBC for any precruise purchase.

[bacruiser4life]

We have stock in both Carnival and Royal. The OBC is more useful on Carnival because they allow you to combine it with other OBC you may have received. Royal typically does not allow you to combine OBC as a shareholder with any other.

We do enjoy the OBC on both though. This month the Carnival board extended this benefit for another 12 months.

 

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[rlkubi]

We have had stock for 10 years but it was around $38 so it has almost paid for itself now. The stock is now about $65 so IMO to expensive.

[Retired_to_Cruise]

Yes & yes but my thought was 3 cruises a year at $100 each would be like a 5% yearly return + the 2% dividend. The money is making less then that where it is now. I don't plan on scaling back cruising any time soon but instead plan on ramping it up when my husband retires in 4 years. At 50 we still have a bunch of cruising years ahead of us. This would definitely be a long term investment but I can't help but be concerned Carnival can do like Royal did and take the benefit away then bring it back with restrictions.

 

Thanks for the info on being able to use it on gratuities & casino.

 

 

We bought 2 years ago when the stock was at $47+. Today it is at $65+. Have sailed 4 to 5 times a year and gotten better returns than the piggy back. We bought it in our IRA (pretax) and do not pay any taxes on the OBC or the dividend. It is the only individual stock we own. We just received approval on the $250 OBC for our October 14 day partial transit of the Panama Canal cruise on the Freedom. We consider it a great investment.

[Florings]

You can have a bunch of cruises booked and buy the stock send in the paperwork and then sell the stock and still use the same paperwork for I think 3 more months.

 

This really isn't completely accurate. If you try to claim your OBC from the stocks too early before your sail date, Carnival says to wait until closer to your cruise. If your "bunch of cruises" are all within a few months, I suppose one could probably get away with that.

 

But why would anyone behave like a sneak-thief? I just don't get it.

[CheapieD]

The OP asks about downside. There are several things

1) the stock has performed very well in the last 18 months but prior to that it lagged the market considerably. You are investing in a stock that provides a non essential consumer product. If the economy slows down and we enter a recession this category is one of the first things that gets cut back in a consumers budget.

 

2) OBC is not the same as cash and should not be used to determine returns. You cannot access the OBC without spending money to buy a cruise. Also the true net value of the OBC is not really $100 since you have to use it to buy items at a high markup from the actual cost. For instance a six pack of beer on land might be $6-$10 dollars but on the ship it is closer to $30 making the OBC worth less. If you were going to buy the items anyway than at least you are not coming out of pocket for them but if you likely would refrain from spending that money if you had to shell out cash than the value is diminished.

 

3) opportunity cost: the $6500 or so dollars that it will cost you to buy 100 shares could maybe be used to invest in a more profitable investment. The higher returns could pay for OBC for many cruises . This was definitely the case prior to the stock recent run

 

You also have to look at risk. Buying a single stock is inherently more risking than having multiple stocks. Conventional wisdom says you should never have more than 5-10% of you net worth in one stock. (Based on a $65 closing price that would be a net worth between around 150 to 300k). If you are in that position and feel the stock has good fundamentals go for it.

 

You will hear all kinds of post about how they bought the stock at xyz and have gone on 100's of cruises and came out so far ahead but you have to look at the big picture. In the end it is only around $6500 and if that doesn't present a hardship to buy and makes you happy buy away.

 

 

 

 

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[coevan]

Carnival Corporation stock has been making new highs each day lately!

It is not the best time to buy at its top but having it has been great!!

We bought more as a good investment and not just for the OBC.

Who told you that you cannot use it for tips??? That is not correct!

In fact when you have OBC it gets used for tips before you may have a chance to use it for other things.

 

 

It's not the best time to buy? That's what I said about Amazon at $300. One request Riff, will you please increase your font size, it's a strain on my contacts.

[CruisinDawn]

Carnival Corporation stock has been making new highs each day lately!

It is not the best time to buy at its top but having it has been great!!

We bought more as a good investment and not just for the OBC.

Who told you that you cannot use it for tips??? That is not correct!

In fact when you have OBC it gets used for tips before you may have a chance to use it for other things.

I got the info about the tips from the Carnival Shareholder Benefit PDF, good to know they don't adhere to it. :D

"This benefit is not transferable, cannot be exchanged for cash and, cannot be used for casino credits/charges and gratuities charged to your onboard account."

 

BonVoyage

Dawna

[JKrise]

Own the stock.

Great benefit on top of a decent dividend.

Plan to cash in on the dividend regularly.

 

 

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[tallyho8]

Royal's stock has gone from $8 to $110. A gain of $102 per share since 1993. Over the same period of time, Carnival started at the same $8 in 1993 and is now at a whopping $65. I may not be a math expert, but $110 is significantly higher than $65....

In just the last year, Royal is up 46%, Carnival up 35%... again, I may not be a math expert......

Yeah, sure, if you happened to buy CCL in 1990, you've done pretty well.... for the rest of us... RCL has vastly outperformed over the last 25 years.

 

If you pick out certain dates to make stock trades you can show that either stock has made more money from a theoretical date so to use a fair date I picked the date of the stocks IPO.

 

Using that date If you had bought $1000 in RCL at $9.188 you would have gotten 109.58 shares which as of today's closing bell is worth 109.55 for a total of $11933.55 for your $1000 investment, just counting stock prices and not dividends which are much more complicated to figure.

 

Using that date if you had bought $1000 in CCL at $3.93 you would have gotten 253.93 shares which as of today's closing bell is worth $66.17 for a total of $16802.94 for your $1000 investment.

 

Lots of people took a beating in the Market on cruise stocks in January 2015 when they sold to prevent further losses when RCL dropped over $30 a share and CCL about $10 a share. That can happen anytime in the stock market because trading stocks is a gamble but its still a lot safer than playing roulette in the casino.

[BNBR]

If you pick out certain dates to make stock trades you can show that either stock has made more money from a theoretical date so to use a fair date I picked the date of the stocks IPO.

 

Using that date If you had bought $1000 in RCL at $9.188 you would have gotten 109.58 shares which as of today's closing bell is worth 109.55 for a total of $11933.55 for your $1000 investment, just counting stock prices and not dividends which are much more complicated to figure.

 

Using that date if you had bought $1000 in CCL at $3.93 you would have gotten 253.93 shares which as of today's closing bell is worth $66.17 for a total of $16802.94 for your $1000 investment.

 

Lots of people took a beating in the Market on cruise stocks in January 2015 when they sold to prevent further losses when RCL dropped over $30 a share and CCL about $10 a share. That can happen anytime in the stock market because trading stocks is a gamble but its still a lot safer than playing roulette in the casino.

 

I used 1993 because that's when RCL had their IPO. It doesn't make sense to give Carnival a 3 year head start - how can you possibly compare the two this way? So from the same date - Royals IPO being the earliest possible.... Royal has vastly outperformed Carnival.

[coevan]

OK, this is getting weird, the topic is Carnival Stock benefits

[GROUCHPUSS]

This really isn't completely accurate. If you try to claim your OBC from the stocks too early before your sail date, Carnival says to wait until closer to your cruise. If your "bunch of cruises" are all within a few months, I suppose one could probably get away with that.

 

But why would anyone behave like a sneak-thief? I just don't get it.

 

 

Not true, at least for me. I just had 8 cruises added in March. My farthest away was Jan 2018.

Edited July 14, 2017 by GROUCHPUSS

[Steelers0854]

Please also keep in mind that this is a benefit that can be dropped at any point in time. Does Carnivals's board keeping approving the benefit annually? Yes they do, but there is never a guarantee that next year they will approve it. So please take that into consideration when making your choice.