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This year has been good to shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY). With the economy bouncing back strongly from 2020’s lows, it has seen its loan losses plummet and earnings rebound. Hence, the Lloyds share price has surged from its January low. But what might 2022 hold for the UK’s largest lender?

The fall and rise of the Lloyds share price

Before Covid-19 crashed global markets, the Lloyds share price was doing fine. On 16 December 2019, it hit its 2019 closing high of 67.25p, before ending the year at 62.5p. Then along came coronavirus to spoil the fun. During the London market meltdown of spring 2020, Lloyds closed at 27.73p on 3 April. But the worst was yet to come, with the shares bottoming out at 23.58p on 22 September 2020. At the time, I thought this was crazy, so I said so.

Lloyds stock duly … Read more

Shares in cinema operator Cineworld Group (LSE: CINE) fell by 20% in November, even as moviegoers flocked to see the latest James Bond film. With more potential blockbusters scheduled for release later this year, I reckon Cineworld could be on track to deliver a strong recovery over the coming months.

In this article I want to explain what I think happened in November — and whether I’d buy Cineworld stock for my portfolio.

007 boosts revenue

Us Brits love a good Bond film. Cineworld’s UK revenue in October was 27% above 2019 levels, as moviegoers rushed to see Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007.

The group’s cinemas in the US and elsewhere also delivered an improved performance. Cineworld’s total revenue in October reached 90% of 2019 levels. As a result, the business generated positive cash flow in October, for the first time since before the pandemic.

Takings were boosted by … Read more

The Wise (LSE: WISE) share price has been on a bit of a rollercoaster since the company went public earlier this year. The shares listed directly on the London Stock Exchange and began trading at 800p. By September the share price had reached 1,150p, but quickly fell back down to earth and was as low as 700p in November.

Just yesterday though, the shares rebounded over 10% at one point after the company released its half-year report. Does this represent a turning point in the Wise share price? Let’s take a look to see if I should buy the stock for my portfolio.

Recent Wise share price weakness

As a quick recap, Wise is a FinTech company that offers cross-border money transfer services. I’ve used the platform myself when converting sterling into both euros and dollars, and thought the service was excellent. The cost for transferring was also competitive.

I … Read more

The stock markets fell last week after a new variant of the Covid virus was announced. It seemed a bit like history was repeating itself in miniature from back in March 2020 when the pandemic started and markets crashed. But as an investor, I was watching to see if there were any stocks to buy that are now better value.

Here are two that I think are dirt-cheap buys for my portfolio for 2022 and beyond.

The first stock to buy

The first company I’m looking at is ITV (LSE: ITV). It’s a member of the prestigious FTSE 100 index with a market value of £4.4bn as I write.

I’m sure most will know ITV given that it takes up the prime channel three spot on UK TV. It generates the majority of its revenue from advertising and subscriptions in its Broadcast division. But the company also produces its … Read more

Friday was a gruesome day for UK shareholders, after the FTSE 100 index dived 3.6% on the day. Earlier in the week, the Footsie had pulled ahead by 1.2%, only to end the week 2.5% down. As a result of this mini-meltdown, the Footsie is now only 9% up in 2021. Meanwhile, the US S&P 500 index has shot up by 22.3% this calendar year.

FTSE 100: weekly winners and losers

Of course, few of the FTSE 100’s total of 101 stocks (one company is dual-listed) move exactly in line with the wider index. Indeed, several stocks made decent gains this week. For the record, a total of 21 Footsie shares rose over the past five trading days. These weekly gains ranged from a high of 6.1% to a mere 0.1%. The average rise  across all 21 winners was 2.4%.

At the other end of the scale lie the FTSE … Read more