CCL With Attractive Buying Opportunity

Analysts at Citigroup maintain their "buy" rating on Carnival Corp

, while raising their estimates for the company. The target price for CCL is set to $47. CCL reported better-than-expected Q2 results, driven largely by cost containment. “As was consistent w/our recent checks, June bookings appear to have rebounded following a bit of softness in May with overall yields holding up well thru that period. This is encouraging, as we believe the prior pace of bookings (Jan-Apr) was strong enough for CCL to not give up any price despite a one-month blip in bookings,” Citigroup mentions. The analysts add, "CCL's stock sold off 4.5% today vs. down about 6% for the overall leisure group. We think what prevented nice upside in the stock was the bear case that CCL didn't raise guidance for ‘10 despite very solid 2Q results. We simply think CCL is being conservative, particularly given month to month bookings volatility. Indeed, we were encouraged that key concerns surrounding CCL heading into 2Q (FX, potential soft bookings in May/June, and weak macro trends in Europe) were largely non-issues or not significant enough to derail CCL's ability to hit or beat estimates.” Citigroup has raised its EPS estimates for 2011 from $2.70 to $2.75.