Barclays Share Discussion Threads

[portside1] 23/4/2015 09:37

can not go to the agm is their a live web cast

[keifer derrin] 23/4/2015 09:19

another good way of hitting HFT is to charge them stamp duty on every trade - can you imagine the money that would bring into the revenue.....

[johnwise] 23/4/2015 08:17

How regulators have cracked down on high frequency traders

Navinder Singh Sarao is the latest person to be charged over the alleged manipulation of markets using high-frequency trading. Authorities have cracked down on the practice since the financial crisis

[waldron] 23/4/2015 08:17

Thanks for the FT Article

Mr McFarlane has plenty on his plate at Barclays, which has been hit by both misconduct scandals and poor performance at its investment bank. His letter to shareholders will be published at the end of the Barclays annual meeting on Thursday.

The hope is that as those exceptional items start to fade away, investors will realise the bank’s true earnings power and lift its share price above book value.

Mr McFarlane is not — yet — calling for a change in strategy, more an acceleration of the existing one. But few people — even inside the bank — expect him to be patient with Mr Jenkins for long if the recovery fails to materialise.

[triktrak] 23/4/2015 07:38

Barclays boss Antony Jenkins could be on his way out

Thursday will be the third annual shareholder meeting of Barclays at which Antony Jenkins has sat in the chief executive’s chair. Could it also be his last?

[triktrak] 23/4/2015 07:32

John McFarlane’s five priorities for Barclays

Barclays’ new chairman John McFarlane will quickly stamp his authority on the bank by writing to shareholders on Thursday to outline his priorities on the day he succeeds Sir David Walker.

[johnwise] 23/4/2015 04:36

ALEX BRUMMER: The hi-tech sharks who cost us all so dearly


Flash trading is no more a victimless crime than traditional insider trading, where people benefit from knowing financial secrets ahead of everyone else.

Free markets operate fairly only if there is absolute transparency. But it has become increasingly clear in recent times that advanced technology is the biggest challenge to the level playing field.

Indeed, some of the biggest trading houses, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays, have embraced another secretive form of trading in what are called ‘dark pools’. These, as the name implies, disguise the nature of share trades and who is making them.

The claim from the inventors and proponents of dark pools is that by directly matching buyers and sellers of shares and other securities, away from the official exchanges, they can obtain the best deals for their clients.

That may be the case, but the problem for investors using official markets such as the London Stock Exchange is that they’ll have no information on the volume of transactions done in these dark pools or the prices being set there, which immediately puts them at a disadvantage.

Now, the spotlight has been thrown on another kind of trading activity. If Navinder Singh Sarao is extradited and found guilty of market manipulation, it will have been a huge coup for the American regulators and prosecutors

[smurfy2001] 22/4/2015 21:49

Watch the share price recover when McFarlane does his stuff.

[davew28] 22/4/2015 21:37

Nick Goodway: Barclays boss Antony Jenkins could be on his way out

Thursday will be the third annual shareholder meeting of Barclays at which Antony Jenkins has sat in the chief executive’s chair. Could it also be his last?

At the end of the meeting, 75-year-old Sir David Walker will hand over as chairman to 67-year-old John McFarlane.

There are suggestions that a change in the driving seat might be a good idea.

McFarlane has form in this area. He was pivotal in the departure of Andrew Moss from insurer Aviva in 2012. Indeed, he acted as executive chairman for a while until Mark Wilson was identified and arrived as chief executive.

Jenkins has certainly held the fort since Bob Diamond’s departure in the wake of the Libor scandal in August 2012. He has successfully lowered Barclays’ profile, reduced the scale of its investment bank and dispensed with the name Barclays Capital.

But Barclays has not done as well as some of its shareholders might have hoped. Since Jenkins’s appointment, its shares have risen by some 60% while Lloyds’ are up by 160% and Royal Bank of Scotland’s some 75% .

Nor is Jenkins completely clear of the banking scandals which saw off his predecessors. PPI mis-selling happened, in part, on his watch, as did forex rigging.

McFarlane will not act in haste. But his review of the chief executive’s performance has already begun. Once the matrix is completed it might well signal Jenkins’s departure.

[blackberry122] 22/4/2015 20:32

macarre - watch this space for your answer " "

[macarre] 22/4/2015 18:51

I heard a rumor from a work colleague today that Barclays is preparing a bid for one of the other big 3. I promptly dismissed it as non-sense since the government is trying to increase competition in the banking industry, not to encourage consolidation. Plus, he could be getting the name of the potential target wrong as he is a new comer to the country. Does anybody thinks this has got any legs? I'm highly skeptical, as I don't think BARC have any appetite for acquisitions at present, and I cannot see much of a benefit in bringing the two organisations together.

[samartin] 21/4/2015 16:02

Markets upFinancials upAnd as per normal barclays ......... Down.....why today?

[johnwise] 21/4/2015 02:08

Greece orders raid on government coffers as cash dwindles

The Greek government has ordered a mandatory transfer of cash reserves from state-owned enterprises to its central bank, in a desperate bid to gather enough cash to remain solvent.

[johnwise] 21/4/2015 02:01

Payday lenders are on their way out and with them, reckless attitudes towards money .

ALEX BRUMMER: Fair deals needed for payday lender users

[johnwise] 20/4/2015 13:59

"Let's set aside the propaganda for a moment and get real: anyone with the slightest knowledge of Greek finances and the power structure of the Greek economy/society knew it was insanely risky to loan Greece billions of euros. No one can deny this, yet somehow the lenders deserve to be paid for their avarice, stupidity, incompetence and total disregard for the standards of prudent lending? No, they deserve to be destroyed--closed down and their assets auctioned off.

Here's the thing about Greece issuing its own fiat currency--it will force fiscal discipline in a way that the euro did not and could not. This is why the Greek Status Quo is quivering with fear--the gravy train of irresponsibility enabled by the euro is ending, and they are terrified of living within their means and having to face the discipline that the market will impose on the Greek fiat currency.

If there's one thing Greece needs more than anything, it's the discipline and the rewards of the market. Any nation that issues its own fiat currency has a choice: it can exercise fiscal prudence and enforce policies that reward entrepreneurism, prudent lending, savings, wise investments, fair taxation, etc., or it can try to prop up its bloated, corrupt kleptocracy by printing rivers of fiat money.

If it chooses the Dark Side and prints money in excess, it will soon drive the value of that currency to near-zero. The kleptocracy that hoped to benefit from money-printing is impoverished or forced to move their capital elsewhere.

In other words, Greece returning to being responsible for its own currency is a good thing. The new currency will be valued cheaply relative to other currencies at first, and this is also a good thing, as imports will be unaffordable for all but the wealthy (kiss BMW sales in Greece good-bye) and everything produced in Greece becomes a bargain globally.

This will attract capital seeking places where it can make a profit and is treated fairly, and it will enable Greece to rebuild its export sector and boost its substantial tourist trade.

The promise that marginal borrowers would be transformed into sterling-credit borrowers by adopting the euro was always a fantasy--and a painfully visible fantasy at that. Anyone with their eyes even partially open could see that the vast differences in productivity, credit, risk and culture between the eurozone nations made the euro unworkable from the start.

It was equally visible that the eurozone's inept policies and loose lending standards would obscure these fundamental differences until the damage would be too great to hide--which is exactly what transpired.

The hundreds of billions of euros in so-called bailouts did not help Greece--all they did was bail out imprudent lenders and Euroland Elites. Virtually none of these vast sums helped the Greek nation or its people; what little did stay in Greece flowed to the kleptocrats that continued to rule Greece."

[johnwise] 20/4/2015 13:09

The Euro Farce Continues:

Euro central banks lent 110 bn euros to Greek banks: report

Concern is mounting that Greece, which urgently needs new financing to pay salaries at the end of the month and its creditors, could default on its huge debt and potentially exit the single currency bloc.

[portside1] 20/4/2015 12:11

blair and bush to blame hey killed better people than them selves they are the war crimes