Barclays (lon:barc)
Barclays - Just A Safe Holding Share Until Something better Comes Along?

Barclays Financials

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Barclays Share Price
Grade:The Green Grade - Shares That I Think Are Oversold..
Title: Barclays - Just A Safe Holding Share Until Something better Comes Along?
Company: BARC - Barclays
Share Price Then: 192p
Author: Ian Smith
Date: Wed 30 Aug 2017
Comments: I sometimes find that I have sold a pot of shares and there is nothing that appeals to me, when that happens I look for somewhere safe something where there is both a reasonable chance for a small profit and a low risk of a big loss.

Barclays went from a £2.3bn half year profit 2016 to a £700m loss in 2017 a change of £3bn!

£2.5bn can be explained by their withdrawal from Barclays Africa Group (BAGL) and this is a genuine one off.

The rest of the change comes from profits from continuing operations reducing from £2bn to £1.5bn.

I would have thought that by now PPI claims would have dwindled to nothing, but there were £700m in re-payments and compensation last year and no obvious sign that these will drop before the deadline of Aug 2019.

We have had nearly 8 years of unchanged interest rates, so are we getting to the point where there will be interest rate rises and if we so will we see bad debt offsetting increased interest revenue.

During these 8 years there has been a huge number of young people taking out loans who are not used to worrying or even considering that the repayment that is manageable now may not be manageable in the next few months.

It is less clear if the retail mortgage market is also an area for concern, with most areas of the country having seen continual house price rises repossessions may not involve significant or any losses.

Looking at Lloyds currently at 63p and now free of any government ownership I do not see any signs of enthusiasm for bank shares. Is this because the majority are wrong or are those on the inside aware of something?
Read Count: 460

Buy/No Buy In A Nutshell
NegativesIts hard to know what will happen to bad debt in both the personal and business banking sector as COVID plays out.
PositivesThere is a strong reason to believe that the COVID induced drop down to 70p was an over reaction and a recovery to 150p-200p is realistic.
Initial Review Price120p
Last Review Price107.02p
Last Review Date02-Sep-2020
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Share Commentaries, their purpose.

Previous Commentaries On Barclays
Date Share Price Author Commentary
Wed 12 Jul 2017206pIan Smith

Barclays Often A Safe Haven For When Unsure What To Do Next?



On more than one occasion during the last few years I have found nothing that I wanted to buy and used Barclays as a safe place to be indecisive!

Mainly this is because I still see the post 2008 crash Barclays as being around the 300p plus mark whereas the reality is slightly different..

Yet both times this was a bad decision,

  • t bought at the end of 2015 just before the price dropped from around 210p to around 143p, I waited out the drop and didn't lose any money but I did have a pot tied up for a long time with no growth.

  • I bought again at the start of May this year, again no growth for a couple of months.


This really reinforces the view that I came to that it is better to leave money in the share dealing account rather than just buy something safe whilst in a bit of a rush and not quite sure what to buy next.