The Carnival share price slipped on Thursday in London. The CCL stock declined by more than 1.60%, becoming one of the worst performers in the FTSE 250 index. Other top fallers in the index were companies in the travel and hospitality industry like Wizz Air Holdings, National Express, and TUI.
Carnival stock retreats
Carnival is the biggest cruise line company in the world. It has a market capitalization of more than $23 billion, making it substantially bigger than other companies like Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Liners, among others.
Like all travel and holiday-related companies, Carnival has gone through a difficult time in the past few months. As the Covid pandemic escalated, the company was forced to stop most of its travels. As a result, the firm was forced to raise a substantial amount of capital to cushion its balance sheet. It also laid off thousands of employees.
The reopening has not been smooth as well. The company has been forced to increase its spending on safety and to ensure that most of its employees and customers have been vaccinated. The Delta variant of coronavirus has led to a significant challenge for the firm.
In a statement on Thursday, the company provided an update about its reopening process. Its Island Princess ship will return to service in Spring 2022. Diamond Princess, which became a major super spreader, will take its first voyage in spring of the same year. These ships will join the other eight that have gone back to business. By so doing, the company cancelled its 2021 – 2022 South America and Antarctica program and its 2022 World cruise program.
Carnival share price analysis
The daily chart shows that the Carnival share price has been under pressure in the past few months. The stock is about 58% below the highest point in 2020. At the same time, the shares are slightly below the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level.
A closer look shows that the recent decline happened after the stock formed a rising wedge pattern that is shown in red. The stock is also at the same level as the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. Therefore, there is a possibility that the stock will keep rising as bulls target the lower side of the rising wedge pattern at around 1,900p. This view will be invalidated if the price drops below the key support at 1,262p.
