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Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) defied analyst predictions to release its quarterly results, which were ahead of market expectations. Barclays delivered a significant beat to revenue and earnings per share (EPS) expectations, with sales hitting UK£6.5b, some 14% above indicated. Statutory EPS were UK£0.084, an impressive 85% ahead of forecasts. The analysts typically update their forecasts at each earnings report, and we can judge from their estimates whether their view of the company has changed or if there are any new concerns to be aware of. Readers will be glad to know we've aggregated the latest statutory forecasts to see whether the analysts have changed their mind on Barclays after the latest results.
See our latest analysis for Barclays
Taking into account the latest results, Barclays' 19 analysts currently expect revenues in 2022 to be UK£23.0b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are expected to tumble 32% to UK£0.25 in the same period. Before this earnings report, the analysts had been forecasting revenues of UK£22.0b and earnings per share (EPS) of UK£0.22 in 2022. So it seems there's been a definite increase in optimism about Barclays' future following the latest results, with a nice increase in the earnings per share forecasts in particular.
Althoughthe analysts have upgraded their earnings estimates, there was no change to the consensus price target of UK£2.24, suggesting that the forecast performance does not have a long term impact on the company's valuation. The consensus price target is just an average of individual analyst targets, so - it could be handy to see how wide the range of underlying estimates is. There are some variant perceptions on Barclays, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at UK£2.90 and the most bearish at UK£0.97 per share. This is a fairly broad spread of estimates, suggesting that analysts are forecasting a wide range of possible outcomes for the business.
These estimates are interesting, but it can be useful to paint some more broad strokes when seeing how forecasts compare, both to the Barclays' past performance and to peers in the same industry. We would highlight that sales are expected to reverse, with a forecast 0.7% annualised revenue decline to the end of 2022. That is a notable change from historical growth of 1.6% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the same industry are forecast to see their revenue grow 5.0% annually for the foreseeable future. It's pretty clear that Barclays' revenues are expected to perform substantially worse than the wider industry.