Why Lloyds Banking Group plc (LYG) Soared on Tuesday

We recently compiled a list of the 10 Stocks Firm Up Amid Cautious Trading. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) stands against the other stocks.

Wall Street extended its lackluster performance on Tuesday, with two major indices finishing with only slight changes amid a series of key factors keeping investor sentiment neutral.

Only the Dow Jones finished in the green territory, posting a 0.37 percent gain. In contrast, the S&P decreased by 0.47 percent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell by 1.37 percent.

During the last trading session, ten companies defied a generally cautious market, albeit posting only modest gains. In this article, we have detailed the reasons behind their stronger performance.

To come up with Tuesday’s top gainers, we considered only the stocks with $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.

An aerial shot of a business district with the company’s headquarters towering above its competitors.

Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG)

Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) grew its share prices by 4.41 percent on Tuesday to close at $3.55 as investor sentiment was fueled by a price upgrade from an investment bank.

In a report published Tuesday, JPMorgan said it raised its price target for LYG to £62 from £55 previously, while keeping an ‘underweight’ rating on the shares.

The rating upgrade was achieved despite a dismal fourth-quarter earnings performance, where net income last year dropped by 19 percent to £4.477 billion from £5.518 billion in 2023.

Meanwhile, net income in the fourth quarter alone inched up by 3.4 percent to £4.378 billion from £4.232 billion in 2023.

On Tuesday, Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) also announced the appointment of Natasha Sayce-Zalem as director of digital and business platforms across its Homes business.

Formerly the global head of partner engineering for Amazon Prime Video for the past four years, Sayce-Zalem will be responsible for accelerating the digitization of mortgage processes across Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) brands and channels.

Her appointment came at a time when Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) was on its planned closure of 130 high-street bank locations across the UK this year.

Overall LYG ranks 10th on our list of Tuesday’s top gainers. While we acknowledge the potential of LYG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LYG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.