Strange goings on at Barclays on Tuesday. According to London-based banking analysts, the bank notified them that the consensus figure for earnings per share published on the Barclays website had been “updated.”
For “updated” read “reduced” — by around 15 per cent, in fact, to 58p for 2007/08 and 68p for 08/09.
Given that forecasts from 20 banking analysts go into the construction of those consensus estimates, one or more rival banks must have issued some swingeing revisions to their numbers to reduce overall EPS expectations by this amount.
Or maybe the number was just a little out of date.
Either way, fingers crossed that chief executive John Varley is able to say he is happy with consensus estimates when he delivers Barclays interim management statement on Thursday.
