I’ve owned shares in Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) for years. I’ve bought and sold along the way, with my current average buy-in price around 35p. It’s been a tough year so far for the Lloyds share price. It sits down around 50% year-to-date. This week has been much better, shown by the share price jumping up close to 32p, in a 15% gain at the time of writing.
With large short-term gains like this, there’s always the thought to buy more and add it to my Stocks and Shares ISA right now. This move could have plenty of upside left, something that would really lift my overall portfolio performance for this year. Buying it within my ISA allows me to benefit from any potential profit, without losing any to capital gains tax obligations. But what’s the fundamental driver for the share price here?
The Biden bounce and vaccine news
Stock markets around the world had a double dose of good news as we started the week. Firstly, Joe Biden passed the threshold of votes needed to ensure he will become the next President of the United States. This was taken as a positive, with stocks rallying in the aftermath. Added to this was the surprise announcement that the vaccine Pfizer has been jointly working on has seen a 90% effectiveness during recent trials. This is a logical boost for most companies that have been negatively impacted since the start of the virus.
We’ve seen different share price moves depending on the size of the benefit each firm individually has to the above news. For example, I wrote yesterday how Rolls-Royce and IAG both rallied over 35%. The Lloyds share price didn’t rally as much, but is still in double figures for the week so far.
The Biden bounce was good news for Lloyds from the point of view that global uncertainty and risk from the US election has been taken away. This is more of a general premise that has seen stocks rise, and isn’t company-specific to Lloyds. The vaccine news is more of the driver for the move higher. The knock on impact of a vaccine should be higher consumer spending as businesses reopen. It’ll also support higher business spending, reduction in bad debt provisions, and higher interest rates in the longer term. All of these things are good news for the bank, hence the share price move upwards.
Could the Lloyds share price go even higher?
From my point of view, it’s a little bit too early for me to jump in again and buy more. I fear some investors may have got a little ahead of themselves on the vaccine news. I definitely think there will be a good time to buy into Lloyds before the end of the year, but I’d like to see a little more detail about the vaccine. How quickly will it be available in the UK? How much will be available? Questions like these will determine where the Lloyds share price goes from here.
