Royal Caribbean Shares Sink Over 5% On Troubling Week

Topline
Shares of Royal Caribbean sunk to a one-month low Tuesday morning, dropping more than 5% on the day following a string of troubling incidents, a setback for the world’s biggest cruise line as it looks to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shares of Royal Caribbean fell to a one-month low, though the cruise line’s performance on Wall … [+] Street remains positive on the year. Getty Images
Key Facts
Royal Caribbean’s shares dropped to just over $130 Tuesday morning, the company’s lowest point on Wall Street since mid-March, though its shares have rebounded tremendously from its 2020 low of $23. Despite the setback, the Miami-based company’s shares have climbed nearly 9% on the year. Royal Caribbean’s disappointing morning on Wall Street coincides with a string of incidents aboard some of its vessels in recent weeks, including an incident in the Mediterranean Sea where a 20-year-old passenger jumped overboard from the line’s Liberty of the Seas during a vacation with his family, prompting a search operation by the U.S. Coast Guard. That passenger, whose name has not been released, remains missing, while another passenger on a separate Royal Caribbean cruise also remains missing after disembarking during a stop in Cozumel, Mexico. Last week, the cruise line said it would pay nearly $1.3 million in refunds to passengers who booked trips on the company’s Capital Jazz cruises, as part of a settlement with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office stemming from canceled cruises due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Tangent
Shares of Royal Caribbean’s biggest competitors also tanked Tuesday morning, with shares of Norwegian Cruise Line falling more than 3% to just below $19 per share, and Carnival Corp.’s stock falling nearly 3% to just above $15.
Contra
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has suffered a tumultuous spring, hitting a peak at nearly 40,000 points before tanking over the past two weeks, at one point dropping nearly 400 points on a single day—a 1% drop, amid a decline in a group of asset classes. Despite its successful first quarter, the Dow has since dropped to just over 38,625 points.
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