IAG share price is having a bad year. This week, shares of the British Airways owner, have dropped by almost 10% while the FTSE 100 index has jumped by more than 5%. The shares have also dropped by more than 60% in the past 12 months.
What’s happening: International Airlines Group (IAG) is a large British company is a large airline company that owns more than 598 airplanes. The company’s best-known brand is British Airways. Other brands include Iberia, Avios, Aer Lingus, and Fly Level, among others.
As an airline company, IAG was hit hard by the pandemic because it was forced to suspend most of its operations. As such, in recent months, IAG share price has been rising as investors bet on the vaccines.
However, this year, the United Kingdom has announced new travel restrictions as the number of cases rise. Also, in the United States, the government has admitted that it is not vaccinating as many people as it would have wanted. Therefore, investors are now getting worried that IAG and other airlines will not recover as fast as they were expecting.What next for IAG? Analysts are generally muted about IAG. In general, according to Marketbeat, the average forecast by analysts is for the stock to jump to 220p, which is a 45 upside from the current level. This week, analysts at Bernstein boosted their target to 200p, 32% above today’s level. Analysts at Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Credit Suisse are also bullish about the IAG stock price.
On the daily chart, the IAG share price double-bottomed at 88.70p last year. Since then, the price has rallied and formed a double-top at 179p. It is now above the 50-day and 100-day exponential moving averages.
Therefore, in the near term, the outlook for IAG is neutral. A move below the MAs at 140p, will welcome more bears, who will push it below the support at 123p. However, a move above the double top at 179p will open the possibility of the shares rising above 200p.