Investec has maintained a positive stance on Barclays, recommending investors to 'buy' the stock ahead of the bank's first-quarter results and 'Strategic Update' next month.The broker kept its 295p target price for the shares.Investec raised its forecasts for the bank on Thursday after an annual general meeting (AGM) statement from the group revealed that profits would likely come in ahead of the broker's expectations for the first quarter.The company said it expects a "small reduction" in adjusted pre-tax profit from £1.8bn the year before, leading Investec to lift its estimate from £1.6bn to £1.7bn.Meanwhile, it was reported that Barclays has settled its dispute with the US Federal Housing Finance Agency over mortgage-backed securities at a cost of $280m. Investec said that although it expects further charges for litigation- and conduct-related issues, "we anticipate a very material reduction versus the 2013 outturn"."For a 'cheap' stock, you don't actually need that much to drive a reasonable share price reaction. We think the 'absence of negative surprises' (as clearly indicated by yesterday's AGM statement) coupled with (we hope) improved specificity around cost reduction and capital optimisation initiatives at the May 8th Strategic Update should combine to drive the shares back towards 'fair value'."Our full-year upgrades following yesterday's statement are trivial (less than 0.5%), but we do now expect greater market belief in terms of execution. 'Buy'," the broker said.The stock was down 0.5% at 250.75p by 12:31.BC