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If You Invested $1000 in Royal Caribbean a Decade Ago, This is How Much It'd Be Worth Now

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For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Royal Caribbean (RCL - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to RCL for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Royal Caribbean's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Royal Caribbean's main business drivers.

Based in Miami and incorporated in 1985, Royal Caribbean Cruises is a cruise company. It owns and operates three global brands — Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises. Additionally, it has a 50% investment in a joint venture with TUI AG, which operates the brand TUI Cruises.

The company’s cruise brands primarily serve the contemporary, premium and deluxe segments of the cruise vacation industry, which also includes the budget and luxury segments. These brands operate 64 ships. The ships operate on a selection of diverse itineraries worldwide that include roughly 1,000 destinations on all seven continents.

The company reports revenues under the following segments — Passenger ticket revenues (68.8% of total revenues in 2023) and Onboard and other revenues (31.2%).

Across the company’s five brands, nearly 5.5 million guests sailed in 2022. By the end of 2022, 64 out of 75 ships returned to operations, representing more than 85% of its worldwide capacity. The company’s bookings improved sequentially by 2022-end. As of Dec 31, 2023, the company had nearly $5.3 billion in customer deposits.

In the third quarter of 2022, the company unveiled a three-year financial performance initiative — the Trifecta Program — thereby articulating longer-term financial objectives. The program emphasizes financial coordinates, including Adjusted EBITDA per APCD, Adjusted EPS and ROIC. Under this program, the company expects to achieve a triple-digit adjusted EBITDA per APCD, exceeding the earlier record adjusted EBITDA per APCD of $87 in 2019. The company also expects to achieve double-digit adjusted earnings per share, exceeding the earlier record adjusted earnings per share of $9.54 in 2019.

Bottom Line

Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Royal Caribbean, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in July 2014 would be worth $3,111.19, or a gain of 211.12%, as of July 17, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.

In comparison, the S&P 500 gained 186% and the price of gold went up 79.63% over the same time frame.

Looking ahead, analysts are expecting more upside for RCL.

Shares of Royal Caribbean have outperformed the industry in the past year. The company has been benefitting from strong cruising demand from new and loyal guests and robust booking trends. Also, strength in consumer spending onboard and pre-cruise purchases bodes well. Going forward, the company emphasized investing in a modern digital travel platform to streamline the vacation booking process for customers and expand wallet share. Also, it emphasized new innovative ships and onboard experiences to boost its offering and deliver superior yields and margins. In 2024, the company anticipates its capacity to increase by 8.5% year over year with the introduction of Utopia of the Seas and Silver Ray. Earnings estimates for 2024 have increased in the past 30 days, depicting analysts' optimism over the stock's growth potential.

The stock is up 13.60% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 2 higher, for fiscal 2024. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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