Hedge funds have lost more than $6bn this year betting against cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean and Carnival – two of the 10 most heavily shorted companies in the S&P 500 – and hotels, after underestimating the resilience of the US travel sector, according to a report by The Financial Times.
The report cites data from S3 Partners as revealing that both Royal Caribbean and Carnival have confounded short-sellers’ expectations by more than doubling in value so far this year, with the wider rally in cruise lines and other holiday accommodations, leaving them sitting on $6.4bn of mark-to-market losses.
Carnival, Royal Caribbean and smaller rival Norwegian accounted for $2.9bn of the losses, while short-sellers have also incurred big losses from Airbnb and Booking.com, which are up 70% and 44% respectively so far this year.
According to a data from Breakout Point, quantitative hedge fund Qube Research and Technologies and UK-based Tellworth Investments are among the hedge funds with publicly disclosed short positions in Carnival.
