Macquarie Reaffirms “Outperform” Rating for Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE:NCLH)

Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE:NCLH)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reissued by investment analysts at Macquarie in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $30.00 price objective on the stock. Macquarie’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 9.99% from the company’s previous close.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on NCLH. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Norwegian Cruise Line from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $29.00 to $35.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on Norwegian Cruise Line from $21.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup raised Norwegian Cruise Line from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $20.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Truist Financial raised their target price on Norwegian Cruise Line from $25.00 to $35.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. Finally, Barclays upgraded shares of Norwegian Cruise Line from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $28.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Norwegian Cruise Line presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $29.27.

Norwegian Cruise Line Stock Performance

Norwegian Cruise Line stock traded up $0.84 on Friday, hitting $27.28. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,948,347 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,617,811. Norwegian Cruise Line has a one year low of $14.69 and a one year high of $28.64. The firm has a market cap of $11.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.24 and a beta of 2.64. The company has a quick ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 0.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.35. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $26.51 and a 200-day moving average price of $22.07.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE:NCLH) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, October 31st. The company reported $0.99 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.94 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $2.81 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.77 billion. Norwegian Cruise Line had a net margin of 5.87% and a return on equity of 99.31%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.71 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Norwegian Cruise Line will post 1.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Norwegian Cruise Line news, CAO Faye L. Ashby sold 38,344 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.30, for a total transaction of $1,046,791.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 116,270 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,174,171. The trade was a 24.80 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Andrea Demarco sold 29,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $27.76, for a total transaction of $805,040.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 97,304 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,701,159.04. This represents a 22.96 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 82,344 shares of company stock valued at $2,269,731 in the last quarter. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Norwegian Cruise Line

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Choreo LLC acquired a new position in shares of Norwegian Cruise Line during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $222,000. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its position in Norwegian Cruise Line by 69.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 651,472 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,241,000 after purchasing an additional 267,155 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale boosted its position in Norwegian Cruise Line by 53.4% during the second quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 18,768 shares of the company’s stock worth $348,000 after purchasing an additional 6,535 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Norwegian Cruise Line by 32.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,568,122 shares of the company’s stock valued at $85,835,000 after purchasing an additional 1,129,770 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Edgestream Partners L.P. bought a new position in shares of Norwegian Cruise Line in the second quarter valued at about $411,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.58% of the company’s stock.

Norwegian Cruise Line Company Profile

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a cruise company in North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company operates through the Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands. It offers itineraries ranging from three days to a 180-days calling on various ports, including Scandinavia, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Greek Isles, Alaska, Canada and New England, Hawaii, Asia, Tahiti and the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, Africa, India, South America, the Panama Canal, and the Caribbean.