The Coronavirus Be Cruisin’
It turns out that being stranded on a floating petri dish is not the holiday tourists want to purchase from their travel agents, shares in many cruise line operators plummeting double-digits since the coronavirus outbreak.
The word “quarantine” actually descends from ships and diseases. Amid the black plague, ports around Venice ordered foreign vessels to anchor off-shore for a forty-day “quarantino.” During that time, they had to prove they weren’t carrying infected seafarers or goods.
Sadly, the quarantine hasn’t worked for residents of Yokohama, Japan. Hundreds of Cov-2019 cases are reported to have spread onboard Carnival Corp’s Princess Diamond, and the company’s Westerdam ship also looks virus-stricken. Investors have disembarked following profit warnings, hurting shares during a period when the fast-growing sector should be flying with strong consumer confidence. Instead, sentiment’s in the slumps. But you don’t need to look far for contrarians.
The Invstr community is betting on the industry regenerating if we beat the virus and if conditions worsen on land, vessels becoming the safest places to be. Despite having its stock walloped by Wall Street, our community has traded its way to a positive win ratio on Royal Caribbean Cruises, the second-largest cruise company in the world. Invstr’s are 89% bullish on that name, and 90% bullish on Carnival, which, although less frequently bought and sold, boasts even higher game accuracy at 65%.
Indeed, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is reluctant to ban cruises outright. Mike Ryan, the group’s executive director, recently argued that “if we’re going to disrupt every cruise ship in the world on the off chance that there might be some potential contact with some potential pathogen, where do we stop?”
Chinese media has suggested that a hot summer will kill the virus, and billionaire Richard Branson doesn’t seem too worried either. He christened the ‘Scarlet Lady’ on Friday, a massive cruise liner ready to set sail for his new luxury travel giant, Virgin Voyages. So, we good to cast-off?
