Portal Stocks Seeing Differing Fortunes Amid Covid Uncertainty

The economic impact of Covid-19 knocked property portal stocks down, in some cases to historic lows. Now that there has been a period of stasis and some governments are beginning to sanction small steps towards ending lockdowns and allowing economic activity we take a look at how the portal stocks are performing. Some are on the road to recovery and others are still scudding along the sea bed.

V Shaped

Scout24

The German classifieds giant is firmly on the mend and has already bounced back to €58 from €45 on the 18th of March. Scout24's price was at an historic high in the middle of February, and it seems that the pandemic has not weakened the underlying market forces too much.

OnTheMarket

On the face of things, the rebound that this stock has seen is impressive. At the beginning of March OnTheMarket's share price was tracking around 70GBX. It then fell as low as 30GBX as the full force of the pandemic struck and the country went into lockdown only to regain almost all of its pre-pandemic value at 65GBX on the 23rd of April. The Caveat here is that the stock price has been very low for some time, and well down on the £1.50 per share on IPO back in February of 2018. The agent backed portal is even giving out free stock in exchange for agent listing contracts.

Slow but Steady: Tick mark shaped

Zillow

The US market leader’s price is making up some decent ground in fits and starts despite the US government failing to control the pandemic. Zillow’s stock can be seen to be performing similarly to the Nasdaq of which it is a member.

REA Group

The group that operates Australia’s #1 portal has seen a modest increase in stock price since it bottomed out on the 23rd of March at $65 Aussie Dollars. Now sitting at $85, the stock is ready to push on as and when the Australian market comes back online.

Domain

Boosted by today’s announcement of financial alleviation, Domain is also scaling back up to its February heights. Like fellow member of the ASX 200, The REA Group, Domain’s share price is waiting for the property market to be given the go-ahead by the Australian government.

Limping along the L

Rightmove

The British giant’s stock is legendary among backers for being positively Himalayan in its vertiginous ascent over the last 10 years. It has however suffered the biggest loss of the major portals in terms of share price and has been embattled with its agents over the ever-increasing prices it charges them.

Lifull

The Japanese company which owns both the portal of the same name as well as Lifull Connect Vertical search group has not performed well on the market for some years. The stock price has been bumping along at just above 300 Yen after a small rebound from a low of 267 Yen on March 19th.