It’s time to buy the dip on shares of Norwegian Cruise Line , according to JPMorgan. The firm upgraded the cruise line operator to overweight from neutral. Its $30 price target implies more than 56% upside from Friday’s close. Shares have struggled this year, losing more than 25%. However, analyst Matthew Boss said he came out confident in the company’s prospects after meeting with top executives, even as worry grows that consumers are tapped out and tightening their budgets. NCLH YTD mountain Norwegian Cruise Line stock in 2025. “The definitive message from management was zero detectable change in demand behavior to date despite ‘noise’ in the macro backdrop (supported by recent Chase discretionary spending credit/debit card data available on request), including no change in booking curves to indicate irregular patterns, no cracks in onboard spend (including in high discretionary purchase categories of the Spa & Casino), and no change in cancellation rates,” Boss said. “Insulating the Cruise industry relative to other travel laterals (i.e. airlines/lodging) – CFO Kempa cited the combination of (1) Value Gap at a 30-35% spread today vs. land-based alternatives (down from the ~40% value gap a year ago but still elevated versus the ~20-25% pre-pandemic), and (2) Experience Gap with better ship hardware and private island destinations,” he added. Norwegian shares were up more than 4% after the upgrade. Most analysts are bullish on the stock. LSEG data shows that 14 of 23 analysts who cover it rate it a buy or strong buy. The remaining nine have a hold or underperform rating.
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