Carnival stock is surprisingly buoyant

Carnival Corp. has had its share of bad press, but investors were willing to cut the cruise ship operator some slack Tuesday.

Shares of Carnival (CCL) rose 4% after the company reported quarterly results and announced a management shake-up.

While earnings were better than expected in the second quarter, Carnival said advance bookings for the rest of the year are currently below last year, despite discounted ticket prices.

Carnival also said it will split the roles of chairman and chief executive, currently held by Micky Arison.  Arison will remain chairman, while long-time board member Arnold Donald will become CEO effective July 3.

Arison said the time was right for him to step aside after 34 years at the helm, in order to better "align our company with corporate governance best practices."

Coincidentally, the move comes days after Arison's basketball team, the Miami Heat, won another NBA championship. So don't feel too bad for him.

Despite relinquishing his CEO title, Arison will probably retain significant influence over the company founded by his father, Ted, in 1972. At least that's the chatter making the rounds on StockTwits.

traderrick1
$CCL, who are they kidding?! You cant tell Mickey how to run CCL! His family built it from the ground up...

The shake-up comes after Carnival got dinged by a number of high-profile incidents, including last year's Costa Concordia disaster which led to the loss of 32 lives.

More recently, the Carnival Triumph was stranded after a fire aboard the ship in February caused it to lose power in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. It took five days to tow the ship to shore.

The public relations woes have taken a toll on the company's fortunes. Carnival warned in May that earnings would suffer.

Estimize
Well done MartyChargin beating 14 other analysts and the Wall Street Consensus to take the win for $CCL - http://stks.co/pI1v

Some traders were surprised by the resilience of Carnival's stock given the concerns about safety and sanitation.

ronin245
$CCL amzes but this has so rarely lost 32 since the "wreck" , might take fleet wide bubonic plague to get it under 31 or 30 <bg

The Black Death would definitely be bad for business. But there may be another, equally ridiculous, explanation for the stock's performance.

HedgeFundOfOne
$CCL Guidance is lower than 2012 & price is up. Did Fed announce a capital injection in return for free cruises & drinks?

Why not? Fed chairman Ben Bernanke seems like he could use a vacation after that last press conference, and he's made it pretty clear that he won't be around much longer…