As of late morning shares in Barclays were 1.7% higher at 185p. The FTSE 100 as a whole was virtually the same level as where it opened the day at 6957.
Much of the profit was generate by strong performance in Barclays investment banking business, particularly fixed income trading.
The bank also reported however that it has been hit with a further £600m in payment protection insurance miss-selling claims but this did not out way the good news as far as the market was concerned.
Barclays is the second of the UK’s big banks to report this week with Lloyds Banking Group’s third quarter update receiving a significantly colder market reception yesterday.
The positive performance of Barclays shares coincided with news the UK economy has performed well over recent months, growing 0.5% in the third quarter.
CEO Jes Staley said: “Our strategic priorities remain: strengthening our core businesses; closing Barclays Non-Core as fast as possible; progressing the sell down of our stake in Barclays Africa to a point where we can achieve regulatory deconsolidation; eliminating costs in both core and non-Core; dealing with legacy issues; and meeting our end state capital requirements.
“Taken together, the picture in the third quarter is one of strong progress against this agenda,” Staley continued. Our Core businesses are performing well, Non-Core rundown is approaching the final lap toward closure, we are on top of costs, and our capital position is resilient with strong reasons for confidence in meeting our end state target.”
“Barclays’ third quarter results are a bit of a curate’s egg, the top line in its core business is growing, but profits have been pegged back by one-off items,” noted Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “However, in the banking world, those one-off items do have a tendency to recur over and over again. Like Lloyds, Barclays has been hit by a big PPI charge as a result of the FCA’s decision to call time on complaints in 2019, rather than 2018 as had been expected. Barclays has also seen a pick-up in credit impairments, though some of this comes from a more prudent approach to modelling bad loans.”
