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Barclays first quarter earnings, swings back to profit amid overhaul

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Signage shines through a window reflecting Barclays head office in Canary Wharf, London, U.K.

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LONDON — Shares of Barclays rose 4% on Thursday after the bank reported first-quarter net income attributable to shareholders of £1.55 billion ($1.93 billion), beating expectations and returning the British lender to profit amid a major strategic overhaul.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected net profit attributable to shareholders of £1.29 billion for the quarter, according to LSEG data.

The bank’s shares were up 4.1% by 9:50 a.m. London time.

Pre-tax profits, however, were down 12% to £2.28 billion from $2.6 billion a year earlier, as the bank braces to implement its extensive revamp plans.

Here are some other highlights:

  • First-quarter group revenue was £6.95 billion, down 4% from the same period last year.
  • Credit impairment charges were £513 million, compared with £524 million in the first quarter of 2023.
  • Common equity tier one (CET1) capital ratio, a measure of bank’s financial strength was 13.5%, down from 13.8% in the previous quarter.
  • Full-year return on tangible equity (RoTE) was 12.3%.
  • Quarterly total operating expenses were up 2% year-on-year at £4.2 billion.

Barclays reported a net loss of £111 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 due to an operational shake-up designed to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.

CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said the bank’s first-quarter results showed it was committed to implementing its overhaul plans, including via further investment in its U.K. consumer business and through its acquisition of Tesco Bank, which expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year.

“We are focused on disciplined execution of the plan that we presented at our Investor Update on 20th February,” he said in a statement.

The revamp plans included a £900 million hit due to structural cost-cutting measures, which the bank said were expected to lead to gross cost savings of around £500 million in 2024, with an expected payback period of less than two years.

The overhaul saw the reorganization of the business into five operating divisions, separating the corporate and investment bank to form: Barclays U.K., Barclays U.K. Corporate Bank, Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management, Barclays Investment Bank and Barclays U.S. Consumer Bank.

The bank also pledged to return £10 billion to shareholders between 2024 and 2026 through dividends and share buybacks.

Will Howlett, financials analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said in a Thursday note that the first-quarter results were a “promising start,” indicating that the bank is adhering to the financial roadmap outlined in its 2023 full-year results.

“With a solid start to the year, Barclays is poised to reshape its valuation narrative and deliver on its promises to shareholders,” Howlett said.

“The reiteration of profitability targets, aiming for a return on tangible equity (RoTE) of over 10% in 2024 and over 12% in 2026, reflects a consistency in Barclays’ ambitions despite previous setbacks.”

— CNBC’s Elliot Smith contributed to this report.

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State AGs urge Meta to clean up platform

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New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference at the office of the Attorney General on July 13, 2022 in New York City.

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A group of 42 state attorneys general are calling on Meta to curb the rise of investment scams on Facebook that fraudulently use the images of Warren Buffett and other famous figures, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

James said in a news release criminals are consistently evading Meta’s automated and human review systems to post fake ads that leave retail investors saddled with millions of dollars in losses. Her office continues to see the scams months after reporting them to Meta, she added.

The ads, touting access to Buffett, Elon Musk or Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, lure Facebook users to join chat groups on Meta-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp, according to the New York AG.

There, users are unwittingly involved in alleged pump-and-dump schemes, where criminals boost the price of thinly traded stocks and quickly sell for a profit, leaving small investors with losses.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is struggling to control the rise of cyber scams on its platforms and is a “cornerstone of the internet fraud economy,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The problem is global in nature, with one notable lawsuit being brought by an Australian billionaire who alleges that Meta’s artificial intelligence-run advertising program created and amplified false ads using his likeness.

“Thousands of Facebook users have lost hundreds of millions of dollars to these scams and Meta must do more to stop these fraudulent ads from running on its platforms,” James said. “I am leading a bipartisan coalition calling on Meta to step up its review of ads to stop these scams. I also urge all New Yorkers to be extra careful before putting their money in investments they see advertised on social media.”

Source: New York State Attorney General’s office

The AGs urged Meta to boost its policing of ads, including with more human review, saying that unless they curb the scams, Meta should stop running investment ads altogether.

Joining James were AGs from states including California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: OKLO, CHWY, QUBT, GTLB

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Here’s the inflation breakdown for May 2025 — in one chart

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David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The annual inflation rate increased slightly in May as an uptick in grocery inflation somewhat offset lower prices at the gasoline pump.

And while inflation was relatively tame, economists said they expect President Trump’s tariff policy to raise consumer prices in coming months — and that there was already some evidence of their impact.

The consumer price index, an inflation barometer, rose 2.4% in the 12 months through May, up from 2.3% in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday.

‘Calm before the inflation storm’

That increase to the annual inflation rate was largely due to a data quirk called “base effects,” economists said. (Basically, inflation one year prior, in May 2024, was unusually low, making the May 2025 numbers look high by comparison.)

The monthly inflation rate paints a rosier picture and gives a better indicator of underlying trends, economists said: CPI increased 0.1% from April to May, down from 0.2% the prior month, the BLS said.

A consistent monthly rate around 0.2% would generally be adequate to bring inflation down to the Federal Reserve’s long-term target, economists said.

“It was a very good report,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Basically, it says inflation has finally gotten back to the Federal Reserve’s annual inflation target.”

However, tariffs President Trump levied on many countries and products will likely start to show up noticeably into the summer and fall, he said.

“I think it’s the calm before the inflation storm,” Zandi said. “This [report] still reflects the disinflation that began a few years ago and continued on through the month of May.”

Tariff impact on energy prices

That said, tariffs already had some impact on consumer prices in May, economists said.

For one, gasoline prices fell almost 3% from April to May, according to the BLS. They’re down 12% from a year ago, it said.

This is largely the result of falling oil prices, which reflect concerns about a slowdown in global economic growth due to tariffs, said Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

U.S. inflation rises 0.1% in May from prior month, less than expected

Lower energy prices filter down to the gasoline pump and lower household bills, he said. Lower oil prices also feed through more broadly to reduced costs for transportation, in categories like airline fares, Zandi said.

Airfare fell about 3% from April to May and is down 7% for the year, the BLS said.

Grocery prices were a sticking point in May, though, economists said. Inflation for food at home rose by 0.3% for the month, after having deflated 0.4% the prior month.

Food prices give “a little bit of a queasy feeling,” Zandi said. It’s one of the categories he’s most concerned about, he said.

Other disinflationary factors

Housing inflation has also moderated, an important element since the category is the largest component of the consumer price index, economists said.

Indeed, monthly inflation for rent and “owners’ equivalent rent” (a rent measure applied to homeowners) have “returned to their pre-pandemic norms,” Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Wednesday.

These trends together signaled “a steady downtrend in inflation” back to the Fed’s long-term target at least by the end of this year or early next year, Oxford Economics’ Yaros said.

Tariff risk ‘stalling out’ disinflation

'Possible' tariff effect is smaller than earlier assumed, says Goldman's David Mericle

There were some early signs of tariff impacts in the May CPI report for people “looking through a microscope,” Brown wrote.

For example, major appliance prices jumped 4.3% for the month, and toy prices by 2.2%, he wrote, citing CPI data.

“Unless all retailers are raising prices at the same time, it may trickle not flood into the data,” Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, wrote Wednesday.

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