The Lloyds share price rose above a key resistance level after the London bank reported strong quarterly and half-year results and restarted its dividends. The LLOY stock rose to 47.36p, which is still below the psychological level of 50p.
Lloyds earnings
Lloyds became the next major European bank to report its financial results this week. Other banks that published excellent results were Deutsche Bank, Banco Santander, and Barclays.
In its results today, Lloyds said that its net interest income rose by 2% to more than 7.6 billion pounds in the first half of the year. This led to a net profit of more than 3.86 billion pounds. In contrast, its net income in the same period in 2020 was more than 7.413 billion pounds while its profit was just 19 million.
Other key takeaways from the bank’s earnings were that its loans and advances to customers rose to more than 448 billion pounds while its customer deposits surged to more than 474 billion pounds. Notably, its CET1 ratio rose from 14.6% in the first half of 2020 to more than 16.7%. This performance helped the bank boost its dividend to 0.67p per share.
Further, the Lloyds share price rose after the company confirmed that it would acquire Embark in a 390 million pounds deal. This acquisition will bring billions of pounds to the firm as well as 25 million new customers.
Analysts have mixed views about Lloyds Bank. Those at JP Morgan expect that the stock will rise to 59p while those at Barclays believe it will rose to 60p. On the other hand, Berenberg analysts expect it to rise to 48p.
Lloyds share price forecast
The LLOY shares rose to 48p after the company’s latest earnings. This was a notable move considering that it moved above the upper side of the descending widening channel. Also, the stock seems to be forming an inverse head and shoulders pattern, which tends to be a bullish signal. It has also moved above the 50-day VWMA.
Therefore, I suspect that the stock will climb to the next key resistance level at 50p. This means that the stock may accelerate its bullish trend as investors target the next key resistance at 50p. This is in line with my previous forecast on Lloyds share price. However, a drop below 45p will invalidate the bullish view.
