Shares of cruise line stocks Royal Caribbean (NYSE: RCL), Carnival (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK), and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NYSE: NCLH) were all down more than 5% in early morning trading, but had recovered to losses of roughly 2.5% as of 2:36 p.m. ET.

It wasn't hard to figure out the reasons for the initial plunge -- virtually all stocks were down big today after this morning's hotter-than-expected consumer price index (CPI) report. The curious thing is why these names weren't down nearly as much as other consumer discretionary stocks, such as large-cap technology names. 

Despite a sharp drop in gasoline prices, the August CPI data came in hotter than expected, up 8.3% year over year and 0.1% month over month, above expectations for an 8% rise and a 0.1% decline, respectively. More worrying was core inflation, which accelerated to rise 0.6% month over month and 6.3% year over year, versus expectations of 0.3% and 6%.

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Source Fool.com