Royal Caribbean lifts annual profit forecast on steady cruise demand
The company, however, expects third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $5.55 to $5.65, below analysts' estimates of $5.83, per data compiled by LSEG, amid rising fuel prices.
Shares of the company were down about 3% in premarket trading, after rising about 52% so far this year.
The company expects fiscal 2025 adjusted profit per share of $15.41 to $15.55, compared with its prior forecast of $14.55 to $15.55.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
9 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump fires BLS commissioner, raising concerns about economic data quality
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump fired the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday after data showed weaker-than-expected employment growth in July and massive downward revisions to the prior two months' job counts. Trump accused McEntarfer, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, of faking the jobs numbers. There is no evidence to back Trump's claims of data manipulation by the BLS, the statistical agency that compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data. The U.S. economy created only 73,000 jobs in July. Data for May and June were revised sharply down to show 258,000 fewer jobs created than had been previously reported. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. The BLS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, will serve as acting commissioner. The Trump administration's recent mass layoffs of federal government workers have raised concerns about the quality of U.S. economic data, long seen as the gold standard. Economists, labor unions and Democratic Party leaders criticized the firing as an attempt by the Trump administration to manipulate data and warned of lasting damage to the economy. "The civil servants at BLS are not political actors. They are professionals committed to producing accurate, independent data, regardless of who is in power," said American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley. McEntarfer had worked in the federal government for more than two decades under multiple administrations, Kelley said. Trump-aligned Republicans were supportive of the BLS firing, calling McEntarfer a "Biden holdover." "Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act," said Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward. "Credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world. Blinding the public about the state of the economy has a long track record, and it never ends well." Earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disbanded two expert committees that worked with the government to produce economic statistics. Lutnick has also floated the idea of stripping out government spending from the gross domestic product report, claiming "governments historically have messed with GDP." The BLS has already reduced the sample collection for consumer price data as well as the producer price report, citing resource constraints. The government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 631,000 individual worksites for the employment report. The response rate has declined from 80.3% in October 2020 to about 67.1% in July. "In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad," Trump wrote in another Truth Social post, without offering any evidence. Economists attributed the near-stall in job growth to Trump's trade and immigration policies. They said uncertainty about where Trump's tariff level would settle had made it difficult for businesses to plan long-term. More clarity has emerged as the White House has announced trade deals, but economists said the effective tariff rate was still the highest since the 1930s. Trump slapped dozens of trading partners with steep tariffs on Thursday, including a 35% duty on many goods from Canada.
Reuters
9 minutes ago
- Reuters
Data credibility fears fueled after Trump orders firing of labor official
NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Sharp downward revisions to past jobs data on Friday, followed by Trump's sudden order to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, stoked investor fears about the integrity of economic data and the Fed's ability to read the true state of the economy. News of a surprise weakening in the U.S. labor market last month jolted investors, while revisions to job figures for the past two months raised worries the U.S. central bank may have been flying blind in recent months and may need to play catch-up with interest rate cuts, investors said. Fed Governor Adriana Kugler's early resignation from her term on Friday also potentially shakes up what was already a fractious succession process for Fed leadership amid difficult relations with Trump. "Kugler's resignation allows the president to further shape the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) in his own image," said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 73,000 jobs in July after rising by a downwardly revised 14,000 in June, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its employment report on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls increasing by 110,000 jobs after rising by a previously reported 147,000 in June. The report comes two days after the U.S. central bank left unchanged its benchmark interest rate and avoided signaling imminent rate cuts, dialing back market expectations for an easing at the next policy meeting in September. That changed dramatically on Friday, with odds for a 25 basis point cut in September jumping to around 81% after the data from 38% on Thursday, according to CME Group data. "The Fed's job is becoming increasingly difficult based on the deterioration of the economic data," said Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at Manulife John Hancock Investments. "These revisions are massive and really are a game changer to the Fed's reaction function, and so I think this Fed meeting is one that they'd like to revise." U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said, without evidence, that numbers contained in the July jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were rigged. "In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad," Trump said in a Truth Social post. He ordered that the commissioner of the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer be fired after the data release. "It's definitely a case of shooting the messenger,' said Dean Smith, chief strategist at FolioBeyond. "Firing the head of BLS is not going to improve data collection and dissemination … it's going to undermine confidence in the data going forward,' he added. Revisions for May and June came in well above the norm, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. It gave no reason for the revised data but noted that "monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors." May's nonfarm payroll gain was slashed by 125,000, from 144,000 to just 19,000, while June's downward revision was by 133,000. In total, employment over the two months is now 258,000 lower than initially reported. "It is painfully obvious that the U.S. government has an improper model for payroll calculations," said Michael Green, portfolio manager at Simplify Asset Management. "If you don't have reliable data, you make bad policy." Spencer Hakimian, founder of macro hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, said layoffs across several government departments, part of Trump's plans to reduce wasteful government spending, have prompted him to rely more heavily on alternative measures of economic strength than just government data, such as credit card data, and data from Truflation, an independent inflation index alternative to official government inflation measures. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference on Wednesday the labor market remained strong, and that the central bank was still in the early stages of grasping how Trump's overhaul of import taxes and other policy shifts would play out for inflation, employment, and economic growth. "Had those figures been the initial prints a month or two ago it would have significantly changed the labor market narrative over the entire summer," said Adam Hetts, global head of multi-asset and portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, in a note. Treasury yields, which move inversely to bond prices, dropped on Friday, with benchmark 10-year yields down by a whopping 15 basis points to 4.22% - their biggest daily drop since April. Two-year yields were down by about 25 basis points to 3.69%, registering their biggest daily decline since August last year. Stocks declined too, also weighed on by Trump's latest tariffs salvo. The benchmark S&P 500 index (.SPX), opens new tab lost 1.6%, bringing stocks to their lowest since early July. The deterioration in the labor picture comes amid steep U.S. tariffs on large trade partners that - while not as high as feared earlier this year - are still largely expected to worsen inflation and slow economic activity. "With job creation at stall-speed levels and the tariff headwind lying ahead, there's a strong possibility of a negative payroll print in the coming months which may conjure up fears of a recession," said Jeff Schulze, head of economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments.
Reuters
37 minutes ago
- Reuters
Meta to share AI infrastructure costs via $2 billion asset sale
Aug 1 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab is pressing ahead with efforts to bring in outside partners to help fund the massive infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence, disclosing plans in a filing on Thursday to offload $2 billion in data center assets as part of that strategy. The strategy reflects a broader shift among tech giants — long known for self-funding growth — as they grapple with the soaring cost of building and powering data centers to support generative AI. The social media giant said earlier this week that it was exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centers to help finance its massive capital outlay for next year. 'We're exploring ways to work with financial partners to co-develop data centers,' Meta Chief Finance Officer Susan Li said on a post-earnings conference call on Wednesday. While the company still expects to fund much of its capital spending internally, some projects could attract 'significant external financing' and offer more flexibility if infrastructure needs shift over time, Li said. The company did not have any finalized transactions to announce, she said. The disclosure in Meta's quarterly filing, however, signals that plans are firming up. In its quarterly filing on Thursday, Meta said it had approved a plan in June to dispose of certain data center assets and reclassified $2.04 billion worth of land and construction-in-progress as "held-for-sale". These assets were expected to be contributed to a third party within the next twelve months for co-developing data centers. Meta did not record a loss on the reclassification, which values the assets at the lower of their carrying amounts or fair value less costs to sell. As of June 30, total held-for-sale assets stood at $3.26 billion, according to the filing. Meta declined to comment for this story. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into constructing AI data center 'superclusters' for superintelligence. 'Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,' he said. The Instagram and WhatsApp owner on Wednesday raised the bottom end of its annual capital expenditures forecast by $2 billion, to $66 billion to $72 billion. It reported stronger-than-expected ad sales, boosted by AI-driven improvements to targeting and content delivery. Executives said those gains were helping offset rising infrastructure costs tied to its long-term AI push.
