London, March 13, 2026, 13:13 GMT
Barclays share price came under fresh pressure on Friday, with the stock down 1.7% at 382.75 pence by 0918 UTC and extending Thursday’s 5.1% slide. Investors pulled back from UK bank stocks after Britain’s economy stalled in January and brokers pushed expected Bank of England rate cuts deeper into the year. 1
That matters for Barclays because the bank had only recently tried to reset the equity story. On Feb. 10 it raised targets after 2025 pretax profit rose to 9.1 billion pounds and said it would return more than 15 billion pounds to shareholders between 2026 and 2028. 2
The issue is not just higher rates. If borrowing costs stay up because oil is making inflation stickier, rather than because growth is strong, investors worry more about slower activity and rising bad loans than about fatter margins. 3
BofA on Friday moved its first Bank of England cut call to June from March. Andrew Wishart, an economist at Berenberg, said “the renewed risk of persistent inflation will lead the Monetary Policy Committee to vote 8-1 in favour of a hold rather than a cut” on March 19. 3
Barclays is not the most directly exposed bank to the Middle East. J.P. Morgan said Barclays, Santander, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank each had less than 1% of revenue and profit tied to the region, while HSBC and Standard Chartered were the most exposed and have already been hit as the conflict disrupted Gulf operations. 4
Even so, Barclays stock has become a liquid way for investors to cut UK bank risk. After Thursday’s drop, the shares closed nearly 30% below their March 2 peak of 5.54 pounds, and turnover of 62 million shares topped the 50-day average. 5
Barclays’ own research has sharpened the inflation debate. The bank said last week Brent could test $120 a barrel if the conflict ran for another couple of weeks, and in a more extreme case it sketched a $150 scenario. 6
The risk from here is a messier slowdown. “We think the increased economic uncertainty could imply some additional risks related to the Groups’ trade finance and credit costs,” Morningstar analyst Kathy Chan said, while Berenberg’s Jonathan Stubbs warned that “a prolonged closure and persistently high energy prices pose the real risk.” Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said disruption can also lift demand for foreign exchange and cash-management services, but for now Barclays looks to be trading with the bank sector rather than its capital-return story. 7
