Barclays, BNP Show Boost for Equity Traders Who Dodged Archegos
This content was published on April 30, 2021 - 13:36
April 30, 2021 - 13:36
(Bloomberg) Booming stock markets and retail-investor fueled volatility have delivered the best quarter in years for many European banks’ equity trading desks, mirroring gains at their U.S. counterparts.
On Friday, Barclays Plc said the first quarter was the “best ever” for its equities unit, which reported a 65% year-on-year jump in revenue to more than $900 million, while BNP Paribas SA posted its highest earnings from equities since 2018.
With stock markets on a tear, a raft of European companies rushed to sell shares to keep up with Wall Street’s SPAC-listing boom. For banks it meant bumper fees, and BNP Paribas said the volumes handled by its equity capital markets team were three times what it saw in the same quarter a year ago. And while both Barclays and BNP were spared any fallout from the implosion of the U.S. hedge fund
Barclays boss: Biggest economic boom since 1948
The UK is about to experience its biggest economic boom since the aftermath of World War Two, according to Barclays boss Jes Staley.
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His upbeat assessment came as Barclays revealed its profits for the first three months of this year had more than doubled from a year earlier to £2.4bn. We estimate the UK economy will grow at its fastest rate since 1948. That s pretty spectacular, he said.
The vaccine programme and built-up savings will help to drive the rebound.
Mr Staley said that a combination of the successful vaccine rollout and Barclays estimate of an extra £200bn sitting in customer and company bank accounts meant the UK would join the US in seeing some of the fastest economic growth in decades.
Barclays has funded 1 million pounds worth of medical supplies for India in the last week, as British banks with big operations in the country increase support to their own staff and wider. | April 30, 2021
Soriot s fighting talk
The chief executive of AstraZeneca has hit back at critics in Brussels over jab shortages and said India would have had no vaccines without it,
Hannah Boland writes.Â
Pascal Soriot, speaking at its first quarter results on Friday, said the company had done its best on delivering vaccines for the Covid pandemic, even in the face of intense criticism.Â
He said at the start of the pandemic everybody was talking about 120, 130 vaccines in development - we forget that. But where are all those vaccines? They re nowhere.  Without AstraZeneca, there would be no vaccine in India and no supply to Covax , Mr Soriot said, referring to the organisation delivering jabs to developing countries. Read the full story here.Â
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