Carnival Cruises Into 2018
Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK) continues to coast at levels it hasn't seen since 2011. The world's largest cruise ship operator posted healthy growth for its fiscal fourth quarter on Tuesday morning, as revenue rose 8.2% to nearly $4.3 billion. Carnival has now posted back-to-back quarters of 8.2% in year-over-year growth, and you have to go back more than six years to find the last time that its top line was growing north of 8% in any financial period.
Profitability sailed the other way. Carnival's reported earnings per share dipped to $0.76 from $0.83 a year earlier. Back out unrealized gains and losses on fuel derivatives and other net charges -- a fair approach in smoothing out its performance to get a snapshot of its actual operations given its big bets to hedge fuel costs -- and the cruising giant's adjusted profit still went from $0.67 to $0.63 a share.
Image source: Carnival.
Source: Fool.com
