The cruise confidence index
Good morning,
The “Fat Bear Week” finale is upon us: voting for Alaska’s heavyweight bear crown ends today. Will Chunk, the 1,200-pound legend, win once more? In today’s letter:
- The cruise confidence index is strong
- A telling token spend signal flips
- The SF hot list: most-expensed restaurants
- How tech stacks travel with employees
The cruise confidence index: record bookings are a bet on next year's YOLO spending
In terms of travel news, the cruise industry often sails under the radar. Airlines get the splashiest coverage, making headlines for everything from rewards program changes to “basic business class” offerings. But cruises, which are generally booked much further ahead than flights, are an indicator of consumers’ confidence in future fun-spending ability. And cruise demand has been going overboard recently.
Carnival, one of the biggest names in cruises, is on deck to report today after posting record quarterly revenue in June. Impressively, Carnival's Q2 occupancy rate was 104% (the industry defines capacity as two people per cabin, and extra occupants can push the rate above 100%). If the cruise industry had its own consumer confidence index, the outlook would be sunny:
- Forward bookings are strong: Carnival said its booking curve is the furthest out on record. In June, it was already 93% booked for 2026.
- Customer deposits reached a record $9B in Q2, up nearly half a billion from a year earlier, suggesting folks are booking further ahead.
- Port side piña coladas: Carnival noted higher onboard and other revenues (nearly $2.4B worth) and higher pre-cruise add-ons like dining and excursions.
“Demand for 2027 and beyond remains strong,” said CEO Josh Weinstein. “Since March, booking volumes and prices for these future sailings have been running ahead of prior year levels.”
Not all sunshine and rosé… In Q2, Carnival had to swallow a nearly 30% fuel price increase, which hit its gross margin yields. Shares of Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line have trailed the S&P 500 by between 35% and 55% since the Iran war began. Fuel is a major variable expense, and it’s extremely pricey right now. Even so, Carnival reported record adjusted profit on the strength of demand. We’ll see how it fares when it reports Q3 numbers today.
The bottom line:
The time horizon is the tell… While flights are more of a coincident indicator, cruises are booked far enough in advance that Carnival’s record 12-month deposits = a real forward vote on discretionary spending ability, especially since capacity was flat (meaning the deposit surge wasn’t driven by new cabins). A record booking curve means consumers are pre-committing to discretionary spending a year or so from now, despite historically high cruise prices.
The single-vendor default flips
The Claude-only buyers are rising.
The share of companies paying for Anthropic but notOpenAI rose from 4.5% last year to 23.1% this year. Meanwhile, the share of companies paying for OpenAI but not Anthropic fell from 60.6% to 19.2%.
Watercooler Data
The ultimate SF corporate power lunch ranking, based on Ramp transaction data.
What are your top spots? Tell us what you think about this list on X.
Traveling tech stacks: how employees carry software between firms
Ever heard one of your colleagues raving about a specific software vendor and bemoaning the fact that your company doesn’t use it? And then a few months later, voilà: procurement is done and your whole team gets put on the tool?
Ryan Stevens, Director of Applied Science at Ramp, analyzed data from Ramp and Revelio Labs to track how senior employees carry software between firms. What he found:
- Word-of-mouth rules. Across the data, ambient exposure accounts for roughly 85% of adoption.
- While job-hopping is a minority channel, it punches far above its weight in driving adoption for young, niche tools.
Explore the findings from Ramp Economics Lab.
Signals Shortlist
- Trump ‘very seriously’ considering diesel export ban as supply crunch worsens (CNBC)
- U.S. and China to cut tariffs for $60B worth of goods, from toys to coal(Bloomberg)
- Nvidia releases software platform to stop AI agents from misbehaving (CNBC)
- Every household in this town receives $10K if a data center gets built (Wall Street Journal)
- Automakers look to use idle factories for defense manufacturing (Reuters)
🗓️ Leading Events:
Tuesday, September 29: JOLTS. OnRamp 2026 conference begins. Earnings expected from Carnival and CarMax
Wednesday, September 30: GDP (third estimate). Earnings expected from Micron, Jabil, Conagra Brands, Cal-Maine Foods, and FactSet
Thursday, October 1: Weekly jobless claims. Earnings expected from Nike, Accenture, and McCormick
Friday, October 2: September jobs report.
🤝 Like what you read? Share Leading Indicators with a friend.
