Shares of the Barclays PLC (BCS) stock were falling today after showing the second worst FICC performance among the global banks. BCS stock price was down by 7.40% to drop at $9.89 a share at the time of this writing. BCS stock was performing well in the previous trading session and closed with a 0.47% gain. Let’s deep dive to explore more of it.
FICC poor performance disappointed investors:
Barclays disappointed the investors by showing the worst performance from its investment bank. Revenue from the fixed income, currency, and commodities business showed a 35% decline according to the report. The slump in the client demand as compared to high demand at the start of 2020 is the main reason for this poor performance. Moreover , the bank anticipated that the costs for the year 2021 will surpass the costs of 2020.
Profit before a tax of the BCS stock for the first three months of 2021 totaled 2.4 billion pounds which represents a significant increase as compared to 923 million pounds in the same period of the prior year. Profit also surpassed the average analysts’ estimate of 1.76 billion pounds.
The impairment charge of 55 million pounds is significantly less than the 2.1 billion pounds in the same period of the prior year. Also, it is much less than the analysts’ forecast.
Donation to India:
BCS stock donated $1.4 million to India in order to help fight against the outbreak of deadly third layer of coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of this donation is to compensate for the shortage of basic medical equipment which is used for the treatment of COVID patients.
Barclays chief executive said that they are continuously looking at the situation of COVID-19 in India. Currently, India is facing the worst COVID-19 as currently, it is reporting more than 300,000 new cases in a single day, and deaths in India due to COVID surpassed the number of 200,000 earlier this week.
Conclusion:
Despite a 65% jump in equity trading, poor performance in the bank’s debt trading value had made the BCS stock red in the stock market. Chief executive officer called it the “A Mixed result” and said that the BCS was slightly off in FICC business due to slump in customer demand.
