London, March 25, 2026, 11:04 GMT
Barclays was up 2.7% in London by 0922 GMT, quoted around 394.45 pence after swinging between 389.65p and 397.40p. A surge across bank stocks helped push shares higher, as oil prices slipped on hopes for a Middle East truce.
This shift is significant—Barclays has been bounced by the same oil, rates, and credit jitters dogging European banks all month. Shares of European lenders tacked on roughly 2%, reclaiming a slice of ground after last week’s rout. British banks, notably, were among the biggest weights on London’s market during the slide.
“The market is trading the headlines at the moment,” said Kerry Craig, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. HSBC tacked on roughly 1.8%, with Lloyds climbing about 2.3% in delayed London trading. But Swissquote’s Ipek Ozkardeskaya flagged that “the market is right now running on optimism” sourced just from Washington. Reuters
Barclays has backing from a new buyback program, too. The bank disclosed on March 23 that since February 10 it’s bought back 83.3 million ordinary shares under the current scheme. That batch is getting canceled, reducing the overall share count.
That follows a more robust capital-return plan unveiled in February. Barclays reported a 12% jump in 2025 pretax profit to 9.1 billion pounds, bumped its 2028 return on tangible equity (ROTE) target past 14%, and outlined plans to hand back over 15 billion pounds to shareholders from 2026 through 2028. ROTE, the bank’s favored metric for profit versus shareholder capital, stays in focus. Finance director Anna Cross said Barclays has “a number of levers” to cushion any impact from a potential U.S. limit on credit-card fees. Reuters
Still, risks remain for the stock. On Tuesday, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority announced it will outline its approach to a multi-billion-pound motor finance redress plan on March 30—a mis-selling probe that could impact Barclays as well as Lloyds, Santander, and Close Brothers.
Market Financial Solutions remains under the spotlight. The FCA confirmed last week it’s now running an enforcement probe into the collapsed lender—a failure that’s left creditors, among them Barclays, with a hole of more than 1.3 billion pounds. The fallout has reignited scrutiny around due diligence standards in both bank and private-credit lending. Barclays took a hit back on Feb. 27, with shares sliding 4.2% following the news.
So far, the move in prices seems driven by relief rather than a decisive revaluation. Should optimism over a truce evaporate and oil prices rebound, Barclays and its rivals might lose those gains just as fast.
