Carnival price target raised to $13 from $9 at Citi

Citi analyst James Hardiman raised the firm’s price target on Carnival to $13 from $9 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. Citi’s most recent work on the cruise industry points to steady improvement in late-2022 and a positive start to 2023, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Royal Caribbean remains the firm’s favorite name in the group given its "most compelling balance of pricing and cost controls." That said, Citi thinks cruise stocks as a group have graduated from "proxy trades" to "compelling long-term investment narratives." The post-pandemic momentum of the cruise space "clearly outweighs" potential macro headwinds in 2023, with budding Asian and European narratives building into 2024, contends the analyst.