Royal Caribbean: Best of a Challenged Bunch, but That’s not Saying Much

Royal Caribbean: Best of a Challenged Bunch, but That’s not Saying Much

Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL) and its cruise operator peers are among the case studies in business model vulnerability to pandemics, a trait making the 57% one-month gain for RCL stock appear misleading.Source: Laszlo Halasi / Shutterstock.com That's a big rally in a short time frame for a stock that's been bludgeoned by the novel coronavirus outbreak. Not only does it lead to some debate regarding whether or not the easy money has already been made here, but it elicits concern about exactly what's backstopping this rally. That foundation revolves around expectations that pre-coronavirus life will rapidly reemerge as the pandemic fades.Those expectations are being fueled by chatter from some companies that the present will be the worst for the U.S. economy and things will start to perk up in the back half of 2020. As it pertains to Royal Caribbean and any other cruise line for that matter, those aren't the companies...

Fed Faces Risky, Inflationary Divorce from Treasury Post Covid

(Bloomberg) -- Breaking up is hard to do.The coronavirus has forged a once unlikely alliance between Donald Trump’s Treasury Department and the central bank he often derided. The close embrace is resurfacing concerns about the Fed’s independence in the long run.By openly urging Trump and Congress this week to spend more money fighting the pandemic, while promising to keep interest rates low, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell risks putting the central bank into a political box once the health emergency has passed.Government borrowing has skyrocketed during the crisis. The big worry is that Fed policy will end up being driven by the need to manage the costs of that debt –- preventing the central bank from taking actions, like raising interest rates for example, that the economy might otherwise require.“The Treasury and the Fed: Are they single, married or divorced?” asked former chief White House economist Glenn Hubbard, now at the Columbia...

What’s the Best Trailer Type During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

You might’ve asked yourself this question as you watched the markets crumble over these past few months. What’s the best trailer type during this pandemic? There is an answer and I will provide it here. As I wrote in my previous post Owner Operator Trucking was Forever Changed for the Worst in 2020, trucking has […]

Stocks fall further after Trump's China tariff threat

World stocks pulled back further on Friday on grim U.S. economic data, mixed company results and President Donald Trump's threat to impose new tariffs on China over the coronavirus crisis. British Airways operator IAG shed another 2.6% as details of its plans to cut staffing, including a quarter of its pilots, to weather the collapse in air travel caused by the coronavirus. The negative sentiment was set by comments from Trump on Thursday that he was concerned about China's role in the origin and spread of the novel coronavirus and that his hard-fought trade deal with China was now of secondary importance to the pandemic....

Trump Hails Kushner’s PPE Airlift, But Details of Sales Are Secret

(Bloomberg) -- A program created by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has airlifted millions of gloves, masks and other coveted coronavirus supplies into the U.S. from overseas -- but it isn’t clear who’s getting them and at what price, or how much private-sector partners are earning through the arrangement.Kushner’s “Project Airbridge” provides transportation via FedEx Corp. and others for supplies that medical distributors, including McKesson Corp. and Cardinal Health Inc., buy from overseas manufacturers, mainly in China. Once a supplier’s goods arrive in the U.S., the companies must sell half the order in government-designated hotspots. They sell the rest as they see fit.The U.S. government provides the air transportation for free, to speed the arrival of the products. The six distributors keep the profits, if any.The program has won praise from some states, where officials say it provided hard-to-find supplies at a critical time in the Covid-19 outbreak, even if it...

Top Five Ways Transponders Benefit Fleets

“Cash is king” is a phrase that applies to just about anything, but it does not apply to paying for your toll. With the ever-changing toll landscape and the rise of all-electronic tolling, the preferred method of payment for most toll facilities is the transponder, and now more than ever, developing a transponder-based approach to toll management has a number of significant benefits for fleets. ...