RSS feedBarclays Capital
’Whoops! Ring-fencing retail banks could backfire
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Jun 06 15:10. Comment.Regulatory snafu anyone?
The UK’s Independent Banking Commission (IBC) recommended in April that banks start ‘ring-fencing’ their retail operations so that large banks are able to fail without endangering depositors. More…
Let’s count the copper with dust on it
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on May 31 15:05. Comment.Michael Robinson over at the BBC’s World Service has been investigating high global commodity prices in a series entitled Bubble Trouble?
In this week’s episode Robinson looks at the copper market and in particular the scale of potential copper shenanigans that may or may not be going on in the market. More…
A little Protium light
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Apr 28 16:56. Comment.For no reason other than to have it out in the open somewhere -presenting the financial filings of C12 Capital Management LLP:
It’s controlled by C12 Capital Management Holding Ltd – as in the guardians of Protium, More…
Protium’s coming home
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Apr 27 09:39. Comment.Eighteen months, $6.39bn of toxic assets, a $12bn loan and a pandaemonium of accounting shenanigans later…
…We’ll ask again, what exactly was the point?
Protium is coming home. That’ll be the arm’s-length accounting trick to shift rubbish assets away from Barclays’ trading book in late 2009 into an independently run, More…
Snap news
Posted by Neil Hume on Apr 27 07:56. Comment.Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Barclays Capital revenues down 15 per cent in three months to end March; to purchase Protium’s investment manager for $83m — statement.
- Johnson & Johnson to buy Synthes for Sfr159 per share, More…
Yen volatility is too much for one bank
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Mar 18 13:18. Comment.And the carry trade/currency weirdness continues:
LONDON (Dow Jones)– U.K. bank Barclays Capital pulled yen prices off its Barx dealing system for a short period Wednesday, as the Japanese currency fizzed to its strongest levels on record, More…
Next up for Barclays – a bad bank?
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Jan 10 11:20. Comment.Here’s a brave call from UBS bank analysts on Monday.
They reckon Barclays could be moving towards a restructuring — that is, shedding some of its “value destroying” pre-crisis assets and refining its business ops in an effort to avoid a Basel III-induced earnings drag and boost pay-offs to shareholders. More…
Fed liquidity in 2008 – everyone was doin’ it [updated]
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Dec 01 17:43. Comment.Poor Lehman.
The Federal Reserve has just released details of its Primary Dealer Credit Facility — the programme that allowed the Fed’s official ‘trading partners’ to borrow from the central bank in return for posting collateral. More…
A curate’s egg for Barclays
Posted by Neil Hume on Nov 09 10:35. Comment.Barclays is not joining its peers and promising a pick up in investment banking activity in the remaining months of 2010.
Diamond Bob could, of course, be low-balling expectations but the tone (and figures) of Tuesday’s third quarter results statement from Barclays suggests this isn’t the case. More…
When a good deal comes back to haunt you, redux
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Oct 22 11:55. Comment.Talk about courtroom drama.
From the closing arguments of Lehman’s suit against Barclays (that’s the one alleging an $11bn ‘windfall’ asset grab when Barclays snapped up its best bits in 2008):
(Bloomberg) Final details of the distribution of billions of dollars of assets as part of Barclays Plc’s purchase of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s brokerage unit were never approved, More…
BarCap’s CoCo comeback
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Oct 15 08:39. Comment.Not contingent convertibles but contingent re-convertibles. CoReCos? Re-CoCos?
Barclays Capital is, according to a report by Reuters Breakingviews, working on contingent capital that would help it meet forthcoming regulatory demands without having to issue new equity. More…
A QE-easy trillion
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Oct 11 11:16. Comment.We may not be getting September’s FOMC minutes until Tuesday — but judging from the state of FT Alphaville’s inbox on Monday, the only thing analysts want to talk about is the inevitability of more quantitative easing from the Fed. More…
For sale — 220m Barclays shares
Posted by Neil Hume on Oct 07 17:30. Comment.Press release from Nomura late on Thursday afternoon:
“PCP Gulf Invest 3 Ltd (“PCP3”) has today entered into derivative transactions with Nomura International Plc (“Nomura”) in order to protect the value of the remaining 131,602,175 warrants it holds in Barclays PLC and complete the hedging of PCP3’s entire interest in Barclays PLC warrants and ordinary shares. More…
Still a risk Ireland will access the EFSF and IMF – Goldman
Posted by Neil Hume on Sep 20 09:45. Comment.No doubt about the main high lowlight of the week (apart from the FOMC meeting) — the Irish government’s attempt to find buyers for €1.5bn of four and eight year bonds on Tuesday.
In an effort to calm nerves ahead of the auction, More…
Bashing Bob
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Sep 08 08:56. Comment.It’s tough being a Bob — or, a study in modern banker-bashing.
We said on Tuesday that Bob Diamond’s appointment as Barclays’ next chief executive was going to be read as a threat to the government over plans to force the bank to break up — since Bob could shift Barclays to America first, More…
BarCap on correlation and ETFs
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Jul 28 11:42. Comment.FT Alphaville has made the case about how increased correlations may be linked to ETFs before — albeit in our own inimitable and non-mathematical style.
But here comes a very similar argument, this time from Barclays Capital’s equity research team (with added maths). More…
From Roubini, to Russia, with love
Posted by Tracy Alloway on Jun 30 08:25. Comment.A new twist in the still-developing Russian-Irish New York/New Jersey spy story.
Turns out erstwhile über-bear — and sometime ladies’ man – Nouriel Roubini was casually acquainted with Ms Anna Chapman, More…
UK banks’ funding fun has just begun
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Jun 28 11:45. Comment.Nomura’s analysts had some sort-of good news for UK banks on Monday:
UK banks are benefiting from a combination of declining impairments, rising margins and strengthened capital bases. The domestic banks are trading on valuations at or below book value. More…
Massachusetts’ California-inspired CDS investigation
Posted by Stacy-Marie Ishmael on May 26 19:53. Comment.Bill Lockyer, trendsetter. Back in March, the California treasurer sent a letter to six Wall Street banks asking, effectively, whether they’d ever traded credit default swaps written on the state’s debt. More…
Fiscal squeals
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on May 12 16:54. Comment.Beyond the rescue package, it’s now all about watching the fiscal cuts… and the bank vulnerabilities… and the financing needs.
So let’s look at the long-term task ahead for Club Med (plus Ireland). More…
On sovereign risk and jamón ibérico
Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Apr 15 13:17. Comment.Surprise, surprise — a former Spanish economics minister would rather not include Spain in the sovereign debt acronym du jour. You know — The Farm Animal Who Must Not Be Named. Hmm.
It may well be a fair case — but it’s also telling that Alfredo Pastor beat up so much on Greece in his interview with Risk Credit magazine [see update at end of post] (H/T Anousha Sakoui). More…
Priced for utopia (tin hats for spring?)
Posted by Paul Murphy on Apr 12 18:47. Comment.A matrix, from MOST (click to enlarge):
The “we”, in the above powerpoint slide, as in “we are here,” is Gregory Peters, a credit strategist at Morgan Stanley. The slide is from the bank’s strategy forum presentation this week. More…
A quant mea culpa
Posted by Paul Murphy on Apr 07 19:43. Comment.Spare a thought for Matthew Rothman, the analyst charged with telling clients of Barclays Capital why the bank’s US equity quant model appears to be broken.
From Wednesday’s market commentary:
Summary
- Our ROQS quantitatively derived long-only enhanced index portfolio underperformed this month, More…
There’s too much liquidity in the eurozone (for now)
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Mar 31 17:21. Comment.One view regarding the unexpectedly poor showing at Wednesday’s last ever six-month Long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) by the ECB is that there’s too much liquidity in the eurozone.
Barclays Capital’s Laurent Fransolet emphasizes the point in his take on the financing operation. More…
What does weak demand for ECB funds mean?
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Mar 31 12:50. Comment.The ECB’s last ever six-month long-term refinancing operations (LTRO) took place on Wednesday, fetching unexpectedly weak demand, according to the newswires.
As Bloomberg reported:
Sixty two banks bid for 17.9 billion euros ($24.1 billion), More…
The CDS inquisition, California edition
Posted by Stacy-Marie Ishmael on Mar 30 20:44. Comment.It was only a matter of time. California — following in the footsteps of Ireland and Iceland, Greece, Spain, and politicians of all stripes and nationalities — has called for an examination of credit default swaps sold against its bonds. More…
Bond: ‘The markets have cornered the political establishment’
Posted by Paul Murphy on Mar 04 18:15. Comment.The Reinhart/Rogoff orthodoxy of the moment tells us that yawning government deficits lead to years of sub-par growth as a big dose of austerity is applied in order to balance the books. Read the authors of This Time is Different on the subject or check with Bill Gross. More…
Eeek, ICO is getting riskier
Posted by Izabella Kaminska on Mar 02 10:56. Comment.We reported a couple of weeks ago how yields on Spanish Instituto Credito Oficiale (ICO) paper — which carry the full guarantee of the Kingdom of Spain — were diverging from Spanish government bonds and other supranational European paper. More…
GBK watch – flatlining
Posted by Neil Hume on Mar 02 09:33. Comment.The lull before another storm?
We aren’t sure. In fact, no one is sure what caused Monday’s sharp sell off.
Barclays Capital reckon it was related to Prudential/AIG deal:
Political uncertainty is an issue for the GBP given the large fiscal deficit, More…
Stress-testing BBVA and Santander
Posted by Neil Hume on Feb 24 10:31. Comment.The price action in BBVA and Banco Santander on Wednesday morning:
The reason for the weakness appears to be a Barclays Capital downgrade.
The BarCap banking team, led by the highly rated Tom Rayner, More…