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In response to Furion. I've gambled my last coin. Over the years I have managed to bring my average down from £2.70 to its current £2.24. I was within touching distance of break even in January. But I am now frighteningly over-exposed in Barclays shares, am sitting on a 'paper' capital loss of £30k and in my heart, I think the SP will go much lower - because not only is there nothing to break the fall at the moment, but I think the economic war over Ukraine is now really going to ramp up and I think things will get pretty ugly, very shortly. I don't buy into the propaganda from either side and I see no early settlement to the war. Whilst in general terms the FTSE and Dow have got back to where they were, that simply reflects many stocks have benefited from the war. Whereas Barclays, being Barclays, will always have bad news magnified in its SP.
Not quite holding my breath, but looking to get past 5th April with cash dividend intact. You simply never know where the next Barclays bombshell is coming from. I see the latest view on the buyback is that it is still going ahead, just simply delayed to Q2. To me it is insane that on the one hand you have the bank trying to buoy the SP by throwing £2.2bn in a year at it in buybacks, whilst on the other hand you have bank employees who are fixing an anchor to the SP with their wrongdoing and incompetence. And look who's winning! And it is not the bank employees in local branches paid an ordinary salary and facing redundancy who are the wrongdoers and incompetents. No, it is those who are paid millions in bonuses, who we are the regularly told need to be paid millions or the bank wouldn't be able to recruit their 'talent', who are taking the SP to the floor! It is high time this bank showed some honesty where it can, acknowledge it cannot control the actions of some of their staff, completely reign in on the bonus culture that is fuelling wrongdoing and incompetence and start treating shareholders with respect. A start would be by acknowledging that buybacks cannot succeed given Barclays reputation. And to acknowledge that an investment in Barclays is significantly riskier than most FTSE 100 companies and that to address this risk, the bank has to significantly increase the cash dividend to shareholders. The bank claiming the forthcoming £1bn buyback is worth 9p per share to shareholders is like some kind of sick joke. Put the 9p per share cash in the hands of the shareholders and scrap this 'money down the drain' exercise.
Sorry Swingman, I may be misinterpreting your post, but just because the passage of time creates history, it does not mean the impact of what happens goes away. Banks, and Barclays in particular, have created a stigma for themselves since the 2008 financial crisis which is unlikely to go away - or at least it hasn't gone away in 15 years. And Barclays in particular have been incredibly adept at reinforcing the point regularly ever since. The catalogue of wrongdoing and mistakes is beyond comprehension. All the financial experts point to profitability indicators to plot the share price targets of a company, but actually it is trust and reward that are key factors to building confidence and sentiment that leads to increase share price. There is no trust in Barclays the company and the shareholder rewards in recent years have been pathetic. As an example at 19th March last year, immediately before the £1.2bn buyback, Barclays share price was £1.83 and the FTSE was 6708. Since then, Barclays has fallen 17% and the FTSE increased by 13% - a swing of 30%. Quite incredible what an effect a £1.2bn outlay can have on a share price!
Another concern is the timing of the key investor sale. Is it the case that before they made the decision they sought more information on the securities sale mess and didn't like what they were told? Was this really a mistake, or was this something that Barclays have been doing for years - like a Ponzi scheme - but because of the current climate we are in, it has been exposed? I know it sounds like wild speculation, but even with Barclays it is hard to comprehend you can sell $36bn of something that you only have $20bn of to sell, and pass it off as a mistake! We need answers quickly.
Rather than sabotage, this is beginning to look like a Barclays board strategy. Drive the SP so low, that when it finally happens, they will be able to buy the company out of public ownership with their £1bn share buy-back. Once again, they have rendered the stock nigh untouchable. It is a pattern that over the last 15 years they cannot stop repeating.
I hope this does not materialise into a bloodbath again tomorrow, but I have just read that BNP Paribas have downgraded Barclays from 'Outperform' to 'neutral' and that a shareholder, likely to be Blackrock or the Quatari investors, are seeking to sell their 3.5% stake in Barclays for a discounted range between 147.5p to 150.75p. This could be another 15p off the SP tomorrow. I obviously hope I am wrong, but if it transpires, I think Venkatakrishnan (who I have not heard speak since he took over) is going to have to come out and try and calm the waters and explain to shareholders what the hell is going on.
We were told the 1bn buy-back was worth 9p per share to shareholders. Presumably then, this ****-up has cost shareholders 4.5p per share? I wonder what claw-back from bankers bonuses will be made to compensate shareholders for this? I am guessing 0p!
mm...Is there anyone else who had been wondering why the SP had been falling behind other banks in recent weeks and why there was a delay in kick-starting the share buy-back (now put back to Q2), who are now wondering whether some in the markets, but not your average punter, knew there was something afoot?
Hello MrWolf and thanks for your post. I do remember the defence made at the time that JM didn't make his comment publicly and it was an aspiration expressed to staff. But together with his comments on the Africa business, only for it to be later ditched in a fire sale, contributed to my lack of faith in him as any kind of business force, however nice a person he might be. Thanks for your additional comments. I am only a layman trader and not a very good one at that, so I found the comments a bit too technical. I hope the conclusion is that all will come good in the not too distant future! I am having a bad day. The only other stock I hold is in Airtel Africa which dived 10% this morning. So, tired of the slow bleed with Barclays this week, I did something I have never done before and that is sold 10% of my holding at a (significant) loss and swapped it to reduce the average on my Airtel Africa stock. Over time I think I will have to ditch more Barclays stock at a loss and buy into other FTSE areas to try and diversify. My real problem is that I am proving to have the Sadim touch (opposite of Midas) when it comes to share dealing. I absolutely agree your comments on Bailey. He is so typical of the weak leaders we see in business. Terrified of making a difficult decision. Leading and respected economists have been telling him since last May that inflation was running away. He led the markets to believe a rate hike was coming last November, only for him to pull back on it and and jolt the markets. And now he has been shown to have been asleep at the wheel with inflation rampant, he pleads for bosses and unions to spare his blushes and do his job for him and urges pay restraint to curb inflation, whilst he takes home £800k a year! Unbelievable. Have a good weekend.
Thanks for taking the time to explain Trucks. I had seen the effect on the shares in issue of the previous buybacks, but it is the translation into share price that I, and I suspect all shareholders, are keen to see. In theory, once the buybacks stop, and assuming profit margins stay the same or increase, am I right to assume Barclays could afford to significantly increase the cash dividend, as there would be less shares to pay out on?
I await with interest the start of the buybacks which should be anytime soon, to see if it at least stops this 'slow bleed' we are currently experiencing. I think everyone is waiting for Putin to 'up the ante' with Ukraine and NATO in which case Barclays will 'go pop' again. Maybe that is what the Barclays board are thinking as well. A £1bn buyback against the backdrop of an escalating war might, from the SP point of view, appear like pouring money down a drain. Certainly can't see what the last two rounds of buy backs have achieved. Barclays have said that the next buyback is worth another 9p on top of the 6p cash dividend to shareholders. Does anyone have any idea as to how this 9p was calculated?
I note with interest that senior Barclays figures were very recently rewarded with another £15m round of share bonuses. On 13 January of this year the Barclays share price closed at £2.17 and the FTSE closed at 7563. The FTSE is just about back at that level, whereas Barclays is 21% down at £1.73. And this is a perfect illustration as to how risky an investment banks are, and Barclays in particular. Why would you put all your eggs in the Barclays basket (which unfortunately l naively pretty much did a decade ago) when a safe spread on the FTSE would massively out-perform it (not that the FTSE itself has much to crow about in recent years!). Now and again Barclays acknowledges that its shareholders have been long-suffering and promise to do something about it. But they never do. They simply take the view that increased profits guarantees themselves massive bonuses and assume that share price increase will naturally follow. Clearly it does not. So if raising the share price is a key focus of the bank - which it isn't, but should be (remember McFarlane and his embarrassing 'let's double the share price in 3 years to £5.20' comment - what we would give to at least get back to the £2.60 share price at the time he made that comment!) as Barclays profess, then they have to be bolder and show more respect to shareholders. Ignoring the capital loss on my investment, the return on it over the decade has been absolutely pathetic - I would have got more leaving it in a bank. So talk of 'progressive dividends' is rubbish. Relying on profits and buy backs is not going to significantly increase the share price. For well over a decade Barclays has carried an 'inherently risky investment' tag, which the bank has to acknowledge and accept and recognise that to counter this risk, there has to be genuine incentive and reward to shareholders. And that has to come in cash dividends paid. With bank rates now increasing, now is not the time to be jealously retaining profits, but moving from the pathetic 6p a year dividend to somewhere near 10p, which on say a £2 share, equates to 5% annual return. This may go some way to negating the inherent risk of investing in Barclays and get the share price moving north again.
Love it to happen Toff, but there is no reason, as far as I am concerned, for such expectation.
On the matter of buybacks, the problem with them, as I see it for Barclays, is the weight of negative market sentiment against the bank. Since the 2008 crash, many potential investors just think of Barclays as the dishonest, unpleasant, unethical organisation that it actually is, run by 'chancers' who do not know what they are doing and greedy 'snouts in the trough' investment bankers, who do not even understand, much less care, how they are perceived by shareholders. All that matters to them is that their interests are put first.
So share buybacks seem to investors like 'money down the drain' because there is never a time where stable market conditions will allow the effect of them to be felt. From the 2008 crash - came the Saudi / Staveley scandal where senior members of the board were lucky not to be jailed and the e-mail exchanges which showed some members up to be, the nasty creatures they were. Followed by the PPI scandal where the scale of the monies the bank had to shell out in compensation (shareholders money), was simply eye-watering. Then all the issues with Staley and his nasty bullying attempts to unmask a whistle-blower. Brexit, Covid and everything else in-between. And now, just watch, if so much as a spud gun goes off, East of Berlin tomorrow, the gains in SP today, will be wiped off and Barclays will be once again competing for 'top spot' on the FTSE fallers leader board.
To continue the rant - just look at some of the other issues over the years:
McFarlane's 2015 demand that the SP £2.60 be doubled in 3 years - he managed to more than halve it! What we would now give for an SP of £2.60!
Jenkins sacked because he was not aggressive enough - McFarlane wanted greater expansion in the African business, because Africa was where it was at. Only for the African business to go in a fire sale!
The embarrassing act of Staley thumping down his £8m 'golden hello' in Barclays shares when he took over, when the SP was around the £2.40 mark, in an 'I'm the brash arrogant Yank taking over - now watch this SP move' - kind of way. And it did - Southwards! I am not sure the SP ever saw £2.40 again under his tenure - despite the colossal sums he was paid.
The excruciatingly embarrassing way Staley was tricked into answering the fake e-mail in relation to McFarlane 'saving his neck'.
More recently, the way Staley is trying to make out his fairly obvious close relationship with Epstein, that continued after the latter became a convicted paedophile, was simply a business relationship, which is now causing him and Barclays quite a bit of discomfort.
If Barclays is seen amongst potential investors as a thoroughly discredited - 'wouldn't touch with a bargepole' kind of stock, then, in my view, it is absolutely understandable and which is why, despite a decade of pain for me personally, I don't see the 'Eagle soaring' anytime soon. Rant ov
In the last 5 full years the return has averaged 3.3p per share - what does that equate to approximately 1.5%? And this is on a share that for a lot of long-term investors has collapsed in value. Staley always made a point of acknowledging the long-term investors suffering and promising to do more for them. But we know his levels of sincerity. Moby77 makes a valid point. The 2020 final dividend (approximately £2k for me and needed as income to supplement a meagre pension) was cancelled within 72 hours of payment, to ensure the bank was protected against Covid losses. When those Covid losses didn't materialise did the bank stop to think for one minute - hang about we can pay back those dividends to those holding shares in 2020 - after all it rightfully belongs to them? Of course it didn't. It used the money to make the balance sheet look good and now, to reward the investors who jumped on board when the SP was below £1 (no criticism obviously intended of such investors). Barclays priorities have always been to protect the high earners and investment bankers and pay lip service to those who actually own the bank. Just my long-winded way of responding and saying yes - Barclays are stingy and downright dishonest - when it comes to rewarding shareholders.
Blimey! I'm more worried for you than I am for myself now. I'd love it for it to come good for you, but I really think the results will be viewed modestly and I am not so sure the market reaction will be viewed as currently priced in. That's the thing with this stock, it always seems to have a sting in its tale. That said, if we get the Russian distraction out of the way, it surely must get back over the £2 mark in the near future. Unfortunately for me, it has to get nearer the £3 mark to get something out of this stock! Best of luck for next week
I am glad someone else feels as I do. But after 7 years and still 70p short on my average purchase price (on a hefty chunk of shares) and with terrible returns in those years, patience is pretty threadbare.
Well a truly dreadful week. Covid behind us, Putin hasn't set foot in Ukraine and Barclays shares still about the worst FTSE performer after Evraz and down over 7% on the week. Standard Chartered shares did fall on results - initially by 5% but then have bounced back by over 10% since! Contrast that to Barclays which reacted badly to those results and those of Nat West and the SP has stayed down! I think it just shows how much historical negative sentiment weighs against this bank. You have to go back over 6 years since the SP last closed a day out above £2.50 and 9 years since it closed at above £3.00. A very painful decade indeed!
Must admit I am nervous that Standard Chartered are first to report next week. Last report they gave their shares dropped 10% in a day and Barclays got an associated kicking at the same time. Since that date Standard Chartered SP has risen by 35%, whilst Barclays has risen by 13%. I am worried that investors will use the Standard Chartered results next week as an excuse to profit take - thereby sending the SP plummeting and taking Barclays down again. I am predicting the Barclays SP will be bouncing back off the £2.10 mark early next week and if so, I might be selling a significant tranche before Thursday to protect me from a nasty reaction to the Standard Chartered results. Unfortunately however, most decisions I make on this stock - I invariably get wrong!
Another wobble stateside and Friday profit-taking and back down the ladder we go. I'll stick my neck out and say it will be back up to £2.07 by the end of the day.
Unless something happens between now and 8.00am Monday, I think there will be a sharp bounce upwards and more volatility thereafter. Maybe some more decent sell and buy-back opportunity - but I'd prefer things to settle and head in a general northerly direction! I have to say that current market sentiment concerns me for the results coming up. Surely a modest Q4 has already been priced in, but I have a feeling modest results is what we will get and a further hammering might be on the cards.