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

StanChart, Barclays see UK reform costs over $2 billion

Steve Slater and Sudip Kar-Gupta, 18:01, Wednesday 14 December 2011

LONDON (Reuters) - Extra British regulations and taxes on banks will cost Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) more than 1 billion pounds and Standard Chartered (Xetra: 859123 - news) over $500 million a year and are part of a flood of reforms that could backfire, the bosses of the two banks said.

Barclays was in demand following a big push from Citigroup The broker upped its target price for the lender to 245p from 230p and repeated its "buy" rating on the stock.

"We believe BarCap [Barclays' investment banking unit] can be a winner in the consolidating world of capital markets," said analysts at Citigroup.

The analysts concluded: "In the near-term we believe Barclays earnings could surprise on the upside via a combination of cost flexibility in the fourth quarter of 2011 and a seasonal revenue uptick in first quarter of 2012. Longer term much will depend on Barclays' reaction to new regulation, but we believe the bank is well placed to benefit from a wider withdrawal in FICC [fixed income commodities and currencies] competition".

Barclays nudging 2 quid again.

have this morning sold 110k to buy more SBRY and RSA

Barclays to outsource its pensions administration department.

In total, 126 people could lose their jobs after the company announced it was outsourcing its pensions administration department.

Barclays cuts 422 IT jobs to add to UK bank cull

Jan 12 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc is cutting up to 422 staff in technology support to add to a grim day for UK bank jobs after thousands of redundancies were announced by rival Royal Bank of Scotland.

sp through 200p pretty good for a down day.

BARC looking at 210.

Through 211 atm.

Just sold here @219.75 +34.25 too much too soon.

Well done Skinny, excellent trade, I'm still long from 193.55, also long RBS from 22.89 and LLOY from 27.98.

Hi Plateman - I'm hoping to get BARC @205-210 but may not get the chance this time. My last two trades on it have been similar - sell for
+30-40p and buy back 10-15 lower.

I also hold RBS and LLOY from varying prices both lower than yours BUT also some from higher!

Good luck!

Cheers Skinny, I expect we'll see a bit of a retracement from here, so you'll probably be able to get back in again.

Final results due next week.

.

Barclays’ profit set for £6bn

Barclays is to attempt to turn the tide on “banker bashing” this week when it announces that it has exceeded its Government-set lending targets and made profits of as much as £6bn in 2011 despite tough trading conditions.

The British bank, moving into the eye of the storm over bankers’ pay with an expected £11m remuneration total for its chief executive, Bob Diamond, is poised to confirm on Friday that it has surpassed the Project Merlin lending targets.

Barclays heeds critics and cuts bonus pool to £1.6bn at investment banking division

Barclays has cut the bonus pool at its investment banking division to about £1.6 billion, almost a third less than last year, in an attempt to dampen outrage over bankers’ pay.
The figures will be announced on Friday as part of the group’s annual results.

All sounds good, let's hope BD clarifies BARC's potential liability to european debt.
2517

Merrill Lynch note summary:
"People are expecting a poor Q4: IBs so far have shown a 19% QoQ decline in FICC and 13% in equities ($ basis). We pencil in -10% and -27% respectively at BarCap, giving £2.1bn in total top line revenues for the Q. With costs flat the cost income ratio for the year is likely to have increased to 71%. Whilst 4Q trends are clearly disappointing, the big call is what happens in 2012. Revenue expectations are low and if 1Q can match 1Q11 then this should soften the blow.
Whilst we are cautious ahead of results, we still think Barclays is well placed........"

Don't forget that Barclays was over £3.00 this time last year and economic condition was more uncertain. Asia and America are doing very well. We all know that many parts of Europe are weak.

With world population over 7bln, housing market should recover by the end of the year IMO