3 companies · median 18 of 36 checks · prices as of 2026-10-23
Cruise line stocks.
Sorted by how many checks each one passes. Sort by any column to see who is cheapest, who is growing, or who has the strongest balance sheet - and how that compares with what is normal for the industry.
Ranked by checks passed
3 companies in this sector→The cruise lines we cover score close together, from 16 to 20 of 36 checks, with a median of 18.
→RCL, CCL, NCLH are 100% of the $116.0B we cover here, so a sector average says more about them than about the rest.
| Save | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CarnivalCCLRuns the world's largest cruise company: Carnival, Princess, Holland America and more.Report | -3.6% | -11.6% | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 20/36 | |
 Royal CaribbeanRCLRuns Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines.Report | -3.4% | -11.3% | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 18/36 | |
 Norwegian Cruise LineNCLHRuns Norwegian, Oceania and Regent cruise lines.Report | -2.8% | -36.1% | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 16/36 |
The filings behind this table close between 2026-06-30 and 2026-08-31, because these companies do not share a fiscal calendar; prices are the close of 2026-10-23. Each name links to its full report; every score is a count of pass-or-fail checks read from that company's own filings.
Where the sector falls short
median score per axis→Financial health is where the cruise lines we cover come up short most often, at a median of 2 of 6, while Value runs at 4.
| Value | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Growth | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Quality | ●●●●○○ | 4 of 6 |
| Financial health | ●●○○○○ | 2 of 6 |
| Shareholder returns | ●●○○○○ | 2 of 6 |
| Trend | ●●●○○○ | 3 of 6 |
What a normal margin looks like here
sector percentiles · 22 filers→Operating margin clusters among cruise lines, from 15% to 32% across the middle of the field, with a midpoint of 21% measured over 22 filers.
| Metric | Bottom third | Midpoint | Top third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating margin n=22 | 14.9% | 20.9% | 31.6% |
| Net margin n=23 | 4.3% | 13.2% | 24.7% |
| Return on equity n=24 | 6.5% | 11.4% | 16.1% |
Who grows, and who keeps it
every company in the industry→RCL does both: growing faster than this industry's middle and keeping more of each sale than it does. The industry's middle is 4% growth on a 17% margin. NCLH does neither.
A year of price
not a fact about the business→All of them are down over twelve months, by a median of -11.6% - Royal Caribbean (RCL) at -11.3% against Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) at -36.1%. Price is not a fact about a business, and the Trend chapter of each report says what it is measured on.
Head to head
3 pairsThe table above gives the order. These put two of them in one column each, so you can see where the difference actually is.