Morning folks. BARC up atm(478) following interim results and bid rumours this morning.

Market forces

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Bid rumours boost Barclays

Richard Wray
Thursday August 5, 2004
The Guardian

Since the bid for Abbey National, traders ignore a rumour about a takeover in the banking sector at their peril which goes some way to explaining the sudden rise in Barclays' shares in late trading yesterday.
Barclays ended up 9.25p at 470p having come from nowhere in the last 45 minutes of the trading day. Dealers whispered excitedly about a 700p per share bid for the bank as early as this morning from the US financial powerhouse Citigroup.

Citigroup, which had a stab at buying Abbey, has long been expected to move into the UK market and approaching Barclays would not create too much of a regulatory headache. Bank of America was also being suggested.

But wiser heads blamed a hedge fund for putting the story around the market to clear a position. "I would not be surprised if Citigroup did buy Barclays at some point, but this is probably not the right time," said one market old hand. A deal now is unlikely as Citigroup's shares are languishing and any offer would be in paper.

Barclays was also boosted by talk that today's interim results will be good.

It has made something of a habit of releasing downbeat pre-closed trading statements then releasing better than expected figures.

The FTSE 100 closed the trading day down 21.6 points at 4408.1 with volume of 2.7bn shares swollen by activity in BSkyB and Egg.