Royal Caribbean (RCL) Beats Q4 Views, But Outlook Signals Caution Following Costa Concordia

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RCL Hot Sheet

EPS Growth %: -35.5%

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Onboard and other: 107.6M

Today's EPS Names:
TLB, TNP, MENT, More

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) shares are trading higher Thursday following its fourth-quarter earnings report. Shares are up 2.3 percent on the session. Notably, the stock opened this morning's session down nearly 6 percent.

Total revenue rose 10.7 percent from $1.61 billion during the year-ago quarter to $1.78 billion. The Street was expecting $1.78 billion in revs.

Net income saw an even bigger increase, moving nearly 15 percent to $36.56 million, or 17 cents per share. The number beat views calling for EPS of 15 cents, which was the same earnings reported by Royal Caribbean last year.

Royal Caribbean carried 1.20 million passengers in the quarter, with a Available Passenger Cruise Days (APCD) of 8.52 million. Occupancy rate moved down 0.1 point to 103 percent.

Commenting on the Costa Concordia incident, Royal Caribbean said in part: "We believe that most observers and potential guests understand that cruising is safe and that this incident was a very rare anomaly in an otherwise reliably safe vacation. But in the near term it has a significant impact on our bookings." Royal Caribbean did say that no material change occurred in their cancellation rate since the incident.

Looking ahead, Royal Caribbean sees fiscal 2012 earnings of $1.90 to $2.30 per share, shy of $2.94 expected by analysts. For the next quarter, Royal Caribbean is expecting earnings of 10 cents to 20 cents, versus views calling for 25 cents per share.

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