auscgguysgirl Posted February 28, 2017 #1 Share Posted February 28, 2017 So, I started this morning by calling the administrator of our 401k plan here at work. They do not allow for individual stock purchases through our plan and I cannot "add" a company to purchase stock from under the plan. That kinda sucks. Having discovered that, how does one actually go about buying Carnival stock? I've never bought stock individually that was not through my 401k before. And how does one get the "letter" to submit to carnival for the stock holder discount. Curious to see if we can make this work ... we certainly spend enough $$$ w/ carnival to make this worth while. TIA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drazil65 Posted February 28, 2017 #2 Share Posted February 28, 2017 We just went through Fidelity and purchased it ourselves. You can also use something like TD Ameritrade etc., if you do not want to go through the motions then just call them and they can get you signed up and setup. It is not hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coevan Posted February 28, 2017 #3 Share Posted February 28, 2017 "And how does one get the "letter" to submit to carnival for the stock holder discount. " There is no letter, it's called a statement. You make a copy of your statement and send it to the appropriate dept. at CCL. we have used it several times, works very easy. As of today CCL is $56.17, so you would need $5617 plus $7.95 commision to qualify for your $100 OBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare crewsweeper Posted February 28, 2017 #4 Share Posted February 28, 2017 "And how does one get the "letter" to submit to carnival for the stock holder discount. "There is no letter, it's called a statement. You make a copy of your statement and send it to the appropriate dept. at CCL. we have used it several times, works very easy. As of today CCL is $56.17, so you would need $5617 plus $7.95 commision to qualify for your $100 OBC. And I remember not too long ago when posters here were complaining that $32 was overvalued and they were waiting for a price drop!;p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micahs Grandad Posted February 28, 2017 #5 Share Posted February 28, 2017 Just so you know it is at an historically high price. Unless you plan to cruise very often not sure if it is a good investment at this price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeeJennyCruise Posted February 28, 2017 #6 Share Posted February 28, 2017 Just so you know it is at an historically high price. Unless you plan to cruise very often not sure if it is a good investment at this price. I'm so glad we bought last November. I have two cruises this year on Carnival and I expect at least one a year going forward. I wish we had bought earlier and I'm glad we purchased when we did. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomCruise48 Posted March 1, 2017 #7 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Fidelity just dropped their fee for online trades from $7.95 to $4.95. If you don't already have a brokerage account, you may want to set up one with Fidelity. Their online tools are easy to use to trade and manage your portfolio. As far as applying for stockholder onboard credit, a couple of months before our cruise, we download a copy of our statement from Fidelity, blackout the account number, and e-mail the page showing Carnival stock ownership to Carnival, If you have a program that allows you to extract pages from a .pdf file, and highlight in black, you can do this without even making a paper copy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asalligo Posted March 1, 2017 #8 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Open an account at Etrade or Charles Schwab and just purchase the stock. Log into your account and print the account page showing the stock. Remove your account number and send a copy to Carnival asking for your OBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkIVette Posted March 1, 2017 #9 Share Posted March 1, 2017 You can also sign up on https://www.stockpile.com/ You can send any dollar amount you want and buy partial shares. They are purchased after market close, so you can't buy at a certain price. But it is an easy way to buy over time as you have an extra few hundred at a time, like $100 every month or so. Each transaction costs .99 cents. For me, it's just easier to buy 2- $500 gift cards through Verizon for each cruise to save $100. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanWeGoYet? Posted March 1, 2017 #10 Share Posted March 1, 2017 All I did was transfer some retirement funds out of my work account, to a Charles Schwab retirement account. I didn't have the option of Carnival stock in any of my work related retirement accounts. Recently this is what I did - years back when Celebrity was at $5 or so a share I bought 100 shares before a transatlantic. Then sold when it hit $40, so I had to buy it again when I decided I would keep cruising with celebrity. The hit was bigger then at around $25 a share for RCL (instead of the $5 / share I lucked out at years earlier) , so I just redistributed some retirement funds to buy the shares of carnival & celebrity. You won't pay a penalty since it is being rolled over into another retirement fund. And it was a good decision - my cruise stock has performed as well or better than any of the rest of my portfolio. Especially when you consider the onboard credit. It might not hurt though to at least look at the 52 week high and low. The stock price will cycle up and down, you may want to see if you can wait for a drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosefloater Posted March 1, 2017 #11 Share Posted March 1, 2017 And how does one get the "letter" to submit to carnival for the stock holder discount. Curious to see if we can make this work ... we certainly spend enough $$$ w/ carnival to make this worth while. TIA! There is no form letter to submit for stock OBC. I attach the stock statement (should be at most 3 months before sail date) to an email. I email the below to guestadmin@carnival.com The body of my email looks like this: I am requesting shareholder stock OBC benefit. Name: Booking #: Ship: Carnival _______ Sailing Date: Attached please find confirmation of stock ownership. Would appreciate receiving confirmation of OBC, Thank you. I like to have all my info going down. I think it makes it much easier to read when looking for pertinent information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
13cheermom Posted March 1, 2017 #12 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I know I was one of the ones complaining $40/share was too high and wanted it to come back down. :loudcry: Little did I know it would increase as it has. My husband wanted to buy in last year and I was the one who held back (not the norm), oh well lesson learned. Anybody think it will ever come back down?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmukid87 Posted March 1, 2017 #13 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I'm just waiting for the price to come back down below $50. Will it? Probably. When? No sign of slowing down. Between reinvesting the quarterly dividends and the OBC this would be a good addition to our portfolio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDoug Posted March 1, 2017 #14 Share Posted March 1, 2017 You should look at this as an investment. Carnival (CCL) currently has a P/E of about 15 and a dividend yield of 2.5% ($.35/share quarterly). Not bad and rated as a Buy by most of the analysts. Royal Caribbean (RCL) has a P/E of about 37 and a dividend yield of 2% ($.48/share quarterly). Not a very good P/E but still rated as a Buy from the analysts. Which stock do you think has more upside to it? The OBC is just a bonus to owning a cruise line stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auscgguysgirl Posted March 1, 2017 Author #15 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Thanks for the responses ... I am going to put some thought into this and figure it out. We will likely watch the hi/low and wait for the stock to drop a bit. We'll see. Not in any immediate hurry ... but definitely worth looking in to. We have 4 future cruises booked over the next 2 years from 8 to 10 days each ... so it will be worth it in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nolaguy8 Posted March 1, 2017 #16 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I thought about this as well, but I have read that you need a minimum of 100 shares. Is that correct? So 100 shares at $56/share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmukid87 Posted March 1, 2017 #17 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I thought about this as well, but I have read that you need a minimum of 100 shares. Is that correct? So 100 shares at $56/share? Yes, 100 shares is the minimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare crewsweeper Posted March 1, 2017 #18 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I'm in agreement with Big Doug and a couple of others here. If you want to buy Carnival stock as a part of your investment or retirement portfolio, do the research and see if the longer term prospects fit what you hope to accomplish in the long term. The OBC is simply a side benefit. There are cheaper ways to get $100 OBC than spending the price of a cruise or more to get it. At current prices, $56.50 or so, you would have to take 57 cruises for your OBC benefit to pay off. For those of you in 401ks, if your employer has a self directed brokerage account, you can gather in shares by directing your and your employers contributions to Carnival stock. But be sure to redirect back to more diversified assets once you've achieved the 100 shares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coevan Posted March 1, 2017 #19 Share Posted March 1, 2017 ; Just so you know it is at an historically high price. Unless you plan to cruise very often not sure if it is a good investment at this price. Just in case you have not watched the market for the past 50 years, it almost always goes up every year. You could say the same thing about the price being too high about: Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla and so on and so on. I bought CCL as an investment at $36, not to get OBC. CCL is a very strong, profitable company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmukid87 Posted March 1, 2017 #20 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I'm in agreement with Big Doug and a couple of others here. If you want to buy Carnival stock as a part of your investment or retirement portfolio, do the research and see if the longer term prospects fit what you hope to accomplish in the long term.The OBC is simply a side benefit. There are cheaper ways to get $100 OBC than spending the price of a cruise or more to get it. At current prices, $56.50 or so, you would have to take 57 cruises for your OBC benefit to pay off. For those of you in 401ks, if your employer has a self directed brokerage account, you can gather in shares by directing your and your employers contributions to Carnival stock. But be sure to redirect back to more diversified assets once you've achieved the 100 shares. OBC alone as the side benefit would take 57 cruises (of 7+ days I believe) to recoup the cost. But the quarterly dividends of $.25-35 per share gives you $100-140 a year and the value of the stock itself. Long term it could be a very fruitful addition to the portfolio, especially if someone cruises very often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micahs Grandad Posted March 1, 2017 #21 Share Posted March 1, 2017 ; Just in case you have not watched the market for the past 50 years, it almost always goes up every year. You could say the same thing about the price being too high about: Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla and so on and so on. I bought CCL as an investment at $36, not to get OBC. CCL is a very strong, profitable company. Actually I do follow the market and purchased my stock in 2009 and it has done very well. Historically it is at a very high point after a long bull market and if it wasnt for the fact that we take multiple cruises a year might well sell. For someone who cruises say once a year the obc is not the reason to buy the stock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DebJ14 Posted March 1, 2017 #22 Share Posted March 1, 2017 I have been buying and selling Carnival stock for years. I always made a profit on the sale, even when I thought I bought it at a very high price. Between the profit on the sales, OBC on cruises and dividends, it has been a very good investment. If I know we are going CCL, Princess or HAL I make sure the stock is in my portfolio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDoug Posted March 1, 2017 #23 Share Posted March 1, 2017 OBC alone as the side benefit would take 57 cruises (of 7+ days I believe) to recoup the cost. But the quarterly dividends of $.25-35 per share gives you $100-140 a year and the value of the stock itself. Long term it could be a very fruitful addition to the portfolio, especially if someone cruises very often. I bought my CCL stock many years ago once I knew that we would be cruising often. I like the stockholders OBC but love the stock's higher value and regular dividends more. I actually have the dividends reinvested to buy more stock. It should be a nice nest egg for my grandson some day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanWeGoYet? Posted March 1, 2017 #24 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Remember also, that if you buy CCL it isn't only good for Carnival. The OBC applies to other cruise lines under the Carnival umbrella. Like HAL, Princess, to name a few. Those cruise lines have longer cruises - so the $100 OBC doesn't really apply to the calculations. If you go on a 14 day cruise, the OBC is $250. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm9912 Posted April 14, 2017 #25 Share Posted April 14, 2017 You should look at this as an investment. Carnival (CCL) currently has a P/E of about 15 and a dividend yield of 2.5% ($.35/share quarterly). Not bad and rated as a Buy by most of the analysts. Royal Caribbean (RCL) has a P/E of about 37 and a dividend yield of 2% ($.48/share quarterly). Not a very good P/E but still rated as a Buy from the analysts. Which stock do you think has more upside to it? The OBC is just a bonus to owning a cruise line stock. FWIW Carnival just increased the dividend from $.35 to $.40 a 14.3% increase for stockholders of record 5/26/17 payable on 6/16/17 CCL closed Thursday April 13th 2017 at $57.47 http://www.barrons.com/quote/stock/CCL Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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