Member Info for JamesYoung

the public timeline regarding barclays' exposure to the collapse of the fraudulent mortgage firm market financial solutions (mfs) occurred rapidly in early 2026. mid-february 2026: barclays reportedly froze the bank accounts of mfs in the weeks leading up to the public collapse.

february 26, 2026: reports from the times and bloomberg first publicized that barclays was among the lenders exposed to mfs following its entry into administration.

initial reports cited a potential exposure of approximately £600 million ($809 million).

barclays declined to comment on the specific exposure at this time.

february 27, 2026: news outlets confirmed mfs entered administration amid "very serious" allegations of fraud, including the "double-pledging" of property assets as collateral for multiple loans.

the collapse was described by analysts as a "****roach event," signaling potential systemic risks in the private credit market.

march 4, 2026: updated reports from bloomberg indicated the actual exposure was likely closer to £500 million ($669 million).

this figure was noted as being lower than the initial £600 million estimate described by the judge overseeing the case.

USD is risky in a long term unless US government cut back debt and increase taxes. But I think oil dollar importance is reducing quickly. China's chip import has surpassed oil import a long time ago. Global chip trading will surpass crude trading very soon. All chip trading are using USD since majority of chip design are in US.

Oil consumption has seen structural weakness due to rapid rise of EV and hybrid cars. Current oil surge may well be the last big price jump in a long and lasting decreasing trajectory. So I don't think USD is done. Look at semiconductor growth rate and the applications already lined up: AI, autonomous driving, humanoid robotics... all those need more and more chips. You will see semiconductor continuously increases in coming year and it will carry the dollar influence.

Barclays BUK RoTE varies in a large range. The lowest was Q1'2025, slightly below 18%. So this additional £45B UK investment can generate ~ 15%x45B = £6.75B. This has potential to boost up EPS by 48p. Applying a PE ratio 6-8x, we have additional £2.9 - £3.9 stock price gain. Give it a 50% discount, we still have ~£1.5-2 gain from this UK investment. Of course, this will increase BARC risk when property market crashes.

From UK government point of view, combined 3 banks investment is ~£100B. With an economic coefficient ~2.8x (new home sales, appliance and all other business), it can produce ~£280B taxable revenue stream. Assuming a 20% GM and 28% tax rate, UK government can net in ~ £15B tax, which can make up the bulk of budget short fall. My calculation may be off. But it is good to see UK government does not kill the golden goose for patching the short term pain.

Rev beat, EPS slightly beat, more impairment and motor loan impairment (£234M) included. Excluding motor loan impairment, EPS will increase 8%.

Wow, one day drop. There are so many smart traders posted the voice. I just checked. Today's BARC.L closes below 3-sigma standard deviation. The probability is very high for people who sold at the price range. Remember all US banks have reported very strong investment bank results, deal/fix income/trading across board. I don't see difference for Barclays. Current EPS estimate stands at 54c for US ADR. If we have another beat, TTM PE will drop further.

Barclay's CEO Venkat just received an interview by CNBC ~ 30min ago. It was a nice one. The investment banking business in US is booming. The pipe line on MA/IPO deals increases substantially since summer. In addition, trading is really strong. He is reserved on FED interest rate cut beyond September and views inflation increases from tariff and companies' pricing behavior. He also mentioned current Labour government is pro business and growth. He does not think the wind fall tax risk is high. Barclays CEO do not often speak to news media. It worths watching.

Story of self-help, US IB upside, and cheap valuation

Barclays is now one of the cheapest banks in the sector on a P/TBV vs ROTE basis. We

do not think this is justified. Part of the share price underperformance this year versus

the sector likely relates to its US exposure, but with the US economy more resilient than

expected and the IB outlook much improved, we do not think the discount is warranted.

In addition, we see a number of ways Barclays can outperform current expectations via

self-help measures, including (1) RWA allocation to the UK businesses; and (2) cost

management. Including the US IB upside, we think Barclays could outperform consensus

PBT by c.5-6% in 2026e/2027e. We reiterate our Buy recommendation and increase our

sum-of-the-parts based POs to 435p/$23.50 ADR (from 415p/$22.08 ADR). See Exhibit

13 for our estimate changes.

Barclays investment bank contributed £1.3B pretax profit, while all UK contributed £1.1B pretax profit. The investment bank category intermidiation includes selling swaps to enable leveraged ETF in US, which generated £1.4B revenue.

US equity market is booming continuously, the leveraged ETF becomes very popular, single stock like NVDA, Goog all have 2x leveraged ETF, which generated nice risk free profit for Barclays.

Q2 rev £7.2B, EPS 11.7p, Dividend 3p, buyback £1B, TNAV 384p, RoTE 12.3%

Estimate £7.01B, EPS 10.8p, Dividend 3.1p, buyback £1.071B, TNAV 381p, RoTE 11%.

Except dividend and buyback are lower than estimate, both top and bottom line have solid beat.

Https://www.bgr.com/1921034/apple-intel-manufacture-future-m-series-chips/

Barclay's investor relation section has an updated consensus for Q2.

Q2 Rev £7.011B, EPS 10.5p, Dividend 3.1p, buybacks £1.071B, TNAV 381p, RoTE 11%

Comparison of Q1 consensus and actual

Q1 consensus Rev £7.394B, EPS 11,6p, Dividend 0, buybacks 0, TNAV 368p, RoTE 12.9%

Q1 actual Rev £7.7B, EPS 13p, Dividend 0, buybakcs 0, TNAV 372p, RoTE 14%

Wall street estimate of Q2 EPS 58c (~10.8p based on today's exchange rate).

Grok said 2008 Lehman US investment bank revenue was $3-5B. Barclays 2025 US investment bank revenue is projected to be $7-9B.

Barclays bought Lehman U.S. equities and M&A, fix income trading, together with 2 data centers in New Jersey. Today, Barclays makes a lot risk free money when market is volatile. Barclays is also a main dealer for selling swap and investment security to leveraged ETF. Those are very profitable, risk free money. You can find many 2x, 3x, 4x ETF. Tesla and Nvidia even have the single stock 2x ETF. Investors on those are essentially gambling and paying a heavy premium to investment banks. So in hindsight, Barclay's acquisition of Lehman brothers was really a good one. It just took a long long time to show up the results.

Why do you sell? worry about correction, economy recession? or you need money to do something more important. It really depends.

If we purely talk from simple valuation point of view, BARC is still very cheap. The dividend is relatively low, but the total return buyback and dividend is impressive. The bank can allocate more dividend than buybacks when they completes 3-yr £10B buyback+divi. The stock is still trading at P/TNAV ~0.8x while US peers (BAC, GS, MS) are significantly above unity.

It requires patience to investing. I sold some on the way BARC going up. I actually feel regret even though I still hold a large trunk of the stock. Barclays is one of the largest bank in UK. It will have a long way to grow the market cap. From macro point of view, its market cap to UK GDP is still substantially lower than US peers, even some other developing country banks. If we factor in the bank's exposure to US revenue (~35%), this ratio is even lower. Bank is the fuel provider for a country's economic growth. In past 25 years, UK stock market has become cheaper and cheaper. It will reverse back to the mean at some point. With the US dollar weakening and the rise of suspicion of US exceptionalism, the trend may have started before we know. Such trend in general are in decades.

Happy trading!

Q1 EPS 13p, estimate 11.6p. Rev £7.7 vs estimate £7.39. TNAV increases to 372p.

I just received the a short news pushed to me. Barclay’s Q1 EPS has been revised to 68c or 13.2p. Last year Q1 estimate was 46c, reported was 51c. Earning growth is very impressive.

BARC is trading at 302p at NYSE now. Let’s see how it closes.

Barc is strong. I have seen people selling at various prices when BARC ascending from 120p to now. I said buy it back when it was below 200p. Hope them got back the shares. Given Barc derives 60-70% revenue from its investment bank, it will do very well in the next a few years. Hold tight and enjoy your ride.

Nov 14, 2024

JP Morgan prefers European investment banks in the long term compared with their U.S. counterparts. Though shares in U.S. banks have justifiably risen after the election on expectations of stability in the regulatory environment and anticipated investment banking activity, the market seems to have already priced in potential positive moves by the new administration in their valuations of U.S. lenders but not in that of European ones, analysts write. " We see this momentum continuing near-term, also supported by a good trading environment in Equities and also in Credit in 4Q so far," they say. European investment banks also stand to benefit from client activity levels improving. The broker's top picks are Deutsche Bank, UBS and Barclays and prefers banks geared to non-net interest income. JP Morgan has an overweight rating on the global investment bank sector.

With election, US financials are on fire. Large US bank ETF is up 6%. The regional bank (small banks) is up 13.2%. This will make Barclays valuation even more attractive in comparison. BCS is up 4.9% now in New York stock exchange.

On top of this, Barclays has >50% of UK revenue from US. The deregulation in US will more or less affect UK bank regulation. I expect more good news down the road for Barclays shareholders. Again, hold your shares tight. You will be rewarded handsomely.

If Barclays can hold Q3 earning trend forward, the stock price is still substantially undervalued. Put into a perspective: current price to YTD 3Q earning is only ~8.5x. Throwing in Q4 wild guess (8.6p median estimate), the forward PE ratio is only 6.6x now. SP500 is 21.9. Large US bank ETF TTM PE is 21x.

EU banks are grossly undervalued compared to US peers. Barclay can buy itself out in less than 7 years if stock price stays at current level and earning stays just constant (no growth). Hold your shares and stay strong. It will be rewarded handsomely.

Barclays Q3 is really strong. EPS estimate was 8.6p. This is a very large beat. TNAV grew 11p to 351p. YTD 35p.

Investment bank is really strong, contributed £0.9B profit. Even US consumer RoTE improved to 10%, how did they make it? it seems day and night just comparing to last Q.

Anyway, this is a super good earning report. Congratulations to all longs.

Anybody knows if Qube's shorted shares have been closed or not? This website had update only at Mar 17. It would incur substantial loss if the short is still open.