barclays will ge coming out with trading update on 07.05.2009 It is expected to report profits higher than market expectations.

A good Buy Medium to Long term

BARC shares halted on trading in London due to high volatility.

Haitong Securities Buy 153.65 300.00 300.00 Reiterates

Who the hell are Haitong Secs??????

Haitong Securities :-)

Hmmm.....a state owned Chinese securities and investment company!!!! Forgive my scepticism!!! ;o)

I wonder where these go from here . Lloyds have bounced back strongly .

Never thought I'd say it, but LLOY looks to be one of the better bets as far as banks go.

BARC have slashed the Divi in more than half.

Summary from Shore Capital today:
"Barclays has published a pretty dismal set of full year results to 31st December 2015 with adjusted pre-tax profit of £5.4bn (Shore: £5.5bn; consensus: £5.8bn) falling short of our own and company-collated consensus expectations primarily due to weaker than anticipated income performance. In addition, the group took another £2.1bn of below-the-line charges in Q4 including £1.45bn for UK customer redress (PPI etc) which resulted in a statutory pre-tax profit of £2.1bn (Shore: £2.3bn) and a Q4 loss of £1.9bn.

While profitability disappointed, capital ratios came in ahead of expectations with a period core tier 1 ratio of 11.4% (Shore: 11.1%) and leverage ratio of 4.5% (Shore: 4.1%). However, TNAV per share was 15p weaker than we forecast at 275p (Shore: 290p). The dividend per share was held at 6.5p (Shore: 6.5p), as previously guided by management, but management has announced that it plans to cut the full year dividend to 3p per share in 2016F and 2017F in order to conserve capital.

Management has also announced a package of strategic measures to improve performance:

In addition to revising guidance on the dividend, management has also confirmed that it plans to exit its African operations (BAGL*) over the course of the next two years which, combined with the dividend cut, is expected to add around 1.0ppts to the core tier 1 ratio, with management targeting operating with a ratio 1.0-1.5ppts above the regulatory minimum in due course. We note that the minimum requirement appears to have increased by 1.1ppts to 11.7% (from 10.6% previously), implying a new minimum core tier 1 ratio requirement of 12.7%-13.2%. This is much more in line with the 13% minimum that peers are targeting.

Management has also announced that a further £8bn of RWAs will be transferred into non-core in, what it describes as, a ‘one time expansion’ …. hmmm. That said, management is still guiding that it can reduce non-core RWAs down to £20bn by the end of 2017, which is unchanged.

Management has set a new target of reducing new core bank costs to £12.8bn (ex BAGL) for 2016F versus £14.5bn (inc BAGL) previously. Barclays African operations had total costs of £2.3bn in 2015, so it looks to us like the cost guidance is actually slightly worse on a like for like basis. We await further clarification on this. The target is for a group cost:income ratio of less than 60% in due course versus 69% (adjusted) in 2015A.

It looks also like return on equity guidance has been dropped, with management now simply expecting the core and group ROTE to coverge over time with the aim of achieving an ‘attractive return for shareholders’, but we cannot see where this has been defined.

Overall, this is a pretty disappointing update from Barclays and we suspect the market will not be too impressed by the changes to guidance or the measures being taken to improve performance. Cost cutting does not seem to be aggressive enough, to us, and the lack of formal guidance on ROTE is a little worrying. Based on the last reported TNAV per share of 275p the shares are trading on a P/TNAV of just 0.6x with a prospective dividend yield (based on 3p of DPS) of under 2%. The stock may seem optically cheap on P/TNAV metrics, but we continue to prefer the better capitalised Lloyds^ (LLOY, Buy at 72p) and RBS^ (RVS, Buy at 224p). HOLD."

2 Mar JP Morgan... 250.00 Overweight
2 Mar Goldman Sachs 310.00 Conviction Buy
2 Mar Deutsche Bank 255.00 Buy

Berenberg today reaffirms its hold investment rating on Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) and cut its price target to 170p (from 200p).

Bouncing back nicely .

Nomura today downgrades its investment rating on Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) to neutral (from buy) and cut its price target to 185p (from 210p).

Q3 2016 Results Announcement

Strong Core business performance with underlying double digit Return on Tangible Equity

· Core profit before tax increased 4% to £4,898m reflecting diversification benefits from consumer and wholesale customers and clients, geographies and products, and the appreciation of USD and EUR against GBP

· Double digit Core RoTE of 10.7% (Q315 YTD: 12.9%) excluding notable items based on an increased average tangible equity base of £40bn (Q315 YTD: £36bn) with a basic earnings per share contribution of 19.4p (Q315 YTD: 21.3p) excluding notable items

· Strong Barclays UK RoTE of 20.0% (Q315 YTD: 23.2%) excluding notable items. Net interest margin (NIM) increased 7bps to 3.63% on increased customer deposit balances, offset by lower interchange fee income in Barclaycard Consumer UK and higher credit impairment charges following a one-off impact from a management review of the cards portfolio impairment modelling

· Double digit Barclays International RoTE of 10.5% (Q315 YTD: 11.5%) excluding notable items. Strong growth in Consumer, Cards and Payments products and encouraging CIB performance, particularly in Q316

· Group profit before tax decreased 10% to £2,900m driven by the acceleration of Non-Core rundown resulting in a 33% increase in loss before tax to £1,998m

· Group RoTE decreased to 4.4% (Q315 YTD: 5.8%)

· Tangible net asset value per share decreased modestly to 287p (June 2016: 289p) in the quarter driven by the UKRF defined benefit pension net assets moving from a £0.1bn surplus to a £1.1bn deficit and £600m of provisions for UK customer redress, partially offset by favourable currency translation reserve movements and profit generated in the period

Another good day here ..

Having another good run the last few days .

StockMarketWire.com
Barclays posts pre-tax profits of £3,230m for the year to the end of December - up from £1,146m last time - but the dividend of 3.0p per share is down from 6.5p in 2015.

The group said the core business performed well reflecting the benefits of diversification across customers and clients, geographies and products, with a 4% growth in profit before tax excluding notable items to £6,436m, delivering a 9.4% return on average allocated tangible equity that was £4bn higher at £41bn.

Return on average allocated tangible equity (RoTE) excluding notable items in Barclays UK was 19.3% and in Barclays International was 8.0%.

The group said the profit before tax of £3,230m drove strong organic capital ratio growth with 100bps of CET1 ratio accretion to 12.4%.

In Q416, the CET1 ratio increased 80bps through reduced RWAs, and an increase in reserves, including from the £1.1bn improvement in the deficit of the UK Retirement Fund (UKRF) defined benefit pension scheme.

The group said it was on track to meet revised end-state CET1 capital ratio of 150bps to 200bps above the minimum regulatory level.

Group chief executive James E Staley said: ""A year ago we laid out our intention to accelerate the restructuring of Barclays and refocus our business as a transatlantic, consumer, corporate and investment bank, anchored in London and New York.

"We have made strong progress against this agenda in 2016.

"Our Core businesses, Barclays UK and Barclays International, are doing well, with profit before tax excluding notable items up 4% to £6.4bn.

"Barclays UK produced an impressive RoTE of 19.3% excluding notable items, and continues to deliver market-leading innovation for customers, including voice security, contactless cash, a new direct investing platform, and in airing the first fraud prevention TV ad campaign from a major UK bank.

"Barclays International delivered a RoTE of 8.0% excluding notable items. We brought further focus to the Corporate and Investment Bank, with income growing 6%, solidifying our position in the bulge bracket. We also saw strong growth in Consumer, Cards and Payments, as income increased 21%, driven by improvements in all key businesses.

"Combined, the Core RoTE, excluding notable items, was 9.4%.

"Accelerating the closure of Barclays Non-Core is a key part of realising the potential of Barclays.

"In 2016 we reduced Non-Core RWAs by £22bn, with £12bn of that reduction coming in the final quarter alone.

"Today, we are announcing that we will close Non-Core on 30 June 2017, six months earlier than previously targeted.

"We reduced our ownership of Barclays Africa with an initial sale of 12.2% in May. In the fourth quarter we agreed with local management and submitted to regulators our proposed separation arrangements for Barclays Africa.

"This is a key milestone before a further reduction in our stake at the appropriate time.

"The progress on our priorities resulted in organic profit generation which strengthened our CET1 capital ratio by 100 basis points in 2016 to 12.4%.

"This puts us well on track to meet our end-state target and we are well positioned to absorb headwinds over the next few years.

"Certain legacy conduct issues remain and we intend to make further progress on them.

"In short, we have accomplished a lot in a year."

What is the market up to?

Waited for drop-back to 232, congratulated myself and bought.

Why, why, why?