Lloyds (LSE:LLOY) shares have been one of the FTSE 100‘s best performing stocks in recent years. The stock has more than doubled in value, and if you bought at the right time, you may have seen it triple.
Clearly the stock has momentum. And many investors will find this momentum appealing. After all, momentum is one of the best indicators of forward performance.
The issue, however, is when the momentum pushes the shares too far beyond what most people would consider to be fair value. And we’re potentially getting to those levels now. Let’s explore why.
The operating environment
Lloyds is the UK’s largest mortgage lender. It doesn’t operate outside the UK. And it doesn’t have an investment arm. So, it’s highly exposed to the British economy, the house market, and UK interest rates.
How’s the UK economy looking? Pretty sluggish. The economy is only expected to grow marginally faster than Russia this year — a country that’s been at war for four years. There are huge policy issues holding the country back too, including the world’s highest energy prices and a tax regime that incentivises higher earners to work less to avoid losing tax benefits.
How’s the housing market looking? Average UK house prices hit a record milestone in January 2026, surpassing £300,000 for the first time with a modest 1% annual growth. That’s not particularly strong and it’s not incentivising investment in the sector. Many developers are now looking at negative land value.
And what about interest rates? Well, partially because the UK economy is so weak, they’re likely to fall further this year. I’d expect two to four cuts this year, taking the base rate closer to 3%. This is very much in the Goldilocks Zone — where rates are still high enough for lenders to earn attractive margins, but not so high that borrowers come under widespread stress and impairments begin to climb.
Overall, I’d describe the environment as stable, but it’s not getting exponentially better. And we’ve already seen the stock nearly triple in value over specific timeframes in the last three years.
Reality is key
Lloyds is still a relatively large holding in my portfolio. It partially reflects the fact that the dividend yield on my initial investment is close to 9% today.
However, I certainly don’t see a huge amount of room for near-term appreciation. And that’s even clearer when we see the stock trading around 10.2 times forward earnings — double where it was three years ago — and the forward yield at 3.5%.
Those figures sound fine in isolation, but over the last 18 years, there’s been little reason for banks to be much more expensive than that.
And that’s why I remain bullish — expecting modest long-term growth coupled with a nice dividend yield — but I don’t see it rushing towards £2.
With that in mind, it’s worth considering. But there are also better examples of value on the index.
