Barclays PLC (LON: BARC, NYSE: BCS) has quietly morphed from a “cheap UK bank” into one of 2025’s standout large-cap performers. After a powerful rally of roughly 60% this year and around 80% over the past 12 months, investors are now asking the obvious question: is there still upside left, or has the easy money already been made? TS2 Tech+1
On 3 December 2025, fresh headlines about the Bank of England’s latest stress tests and ongoing share buybacks are giving the market new data points to chew on. Here’s a structured look at what’s happening with Barclays stock today, what analysts expect next, and how the bank’s strategy is reshaping the investment case.
Barclays share price on 3 December 2025: where things stand
On the London Stock Exchange, Barclays’ ordinary shares closed on 2 December 2025 at around 436p (sell 436.00p / buy 436.15p), with the FTSE 100 basically flat on the day. [1]
Over a longer time frame, the move has been dramatic. Recent analysis notes that the Barclays share price is:
- Up about 80% over the last 12 months
- Up roughly 200% over the past five years
- Still trading on a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple below 12, even after the surge [2]
The US-listed ADR (BCS) is trading around $23.09 in New York, reflecting the same re-rating story on the other side of the Atlantic.
So the market has clearly woken up to Barclays. The question now is whether the fundamentals are keeping pace with the share price – and today’s news is a big part of that answer.
Today’s big story: Barclays sails through the 2025 Bank of England stress test
The headline macro news for Barclays on 3 December is the 2025 Bank of England (BoE) stress-test result. The exercise is designed to see how banks cope under extreme but plausible economic shocks (deep recessions, market sell-offs, etc.).
Barclays has confirmed that:
- It remains comfortably above the BoE’s minimum capital requirements under the stress scenario.
- The group maintains its Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital target range of 13–14%, underlining a robust balance sheet. [3]
In plainer English: regulators threw an economic nightmare at the models and Barclays still had enough capital to absorb the hit without breaching key levels. That’s exactly the sort of news long-term shareholders like to see after a big rally – it suggests the share price is not just floating on sentiment, but backed by real balance-sheet resilience.
This also matters for dividends and buybacks. Strong stress-test performance makes it easier for management and regulators to be comfortable with ongoing capital returns to shareholders.
Ongoing share buybacks: shrinking the share count, boosting EPS
Alongside the stress-test headlines, Barclays continues to lean hard on share buybacks as a key plank of its shareholder-return story.
Fresh transaction in own shares on 3 December 2025
A Regulatory News Service (RNS) announcement today confirms that Barclays has bought back more of its own ordinary shares for cancellation on the London Stock Exchange. The purchases are being executed through Citigroup Global Markets as part of the buyback programme announced on 23 October 2025. [4]
This comes on top of earlier disclosures that:
- On 1 December 2025, Barclays repurchased about 4.66 million shares at an average price around 429p, reducing its issued share capital to roughly 13.9 billion shares. [5]
- Total 2025 capital returns (dividends plus buybacks) have already reached £1.9bn after a previously announced £500m buyback. [6]
Buybacks do two useful things for existing shareholders:
- Shrink the share count, which supports earnings per share (EPS) and can help justify a higher share price.
- Signal that management believes the stock is undervalued relative to its intrinsic value.
The fact that Barclays is still buying aggressively after a 60% rally is a strong statement of confidence from the board.
Q3 2025 results: higher income, upgraded guidance, and some messy one-offs
To understand whether today’s news fits into a bigger positive trend, zoom out to the Q3 2025 results, released on 21–22 October.
Key takeaways from the Q3 update and subsequent commentary:
- Group income rose 11% year-on-year to about £7.2bn. [7]
- Return on tangible equity (RoTE) for Q3 came in at 10.6%, with year-to-date RoTE at 12.3%. [8]
- EPS for the first nine months reached 35.1p. [9]
- Barclays announced a £500m share buyback and signalled a move towards quarterly buyback announcements. [10]
- The bank achieved £500m of 2025 efficiency savings one quarter ahead of schedule, demonstrating real cost discipline. [11]
Not everything was rosy:
- Q3 pre-tax profit fell about 7% year-on-year to £2.1bn, mainly due to:
- A £235m provision relating to UK motor finance mis-selling.
- A £110m charge linked to the collapse of US firm Tricolor. [12]
Strip out those one-offs, though, and underlying performance beat expectations, which is part of why the market reacted positively.
Upgraded 2025 targets
Crucially, Barclays used the Q3 update to upgrade medium-term targets:
- 2025 RoTE guidance raised to >11% (from 10–11%). [13]
- Group net interest income (NII) excluding the Investment Bank and Head Office now expected to exceed £12.6bn in 2025 – slightly above earlier guidance. [14]
So today’s stress-test success and ongoing buybacks are not isolated events; they sit on top of a story of improving profitability, tighter costs and upgraded targets.
Strategy check: from “fixing the bank” to compounding capital
The long-term strategy, first laid out more explicitly in 2024, was to:
- Cut around £2bn of costs over three years.
- Return roughly £10bn to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
- Push RoTE above 12% by 2026, mainly by focusing on higher-return UK and consumer businesses while keeping capital-intensive investment banking more disciplined. [15]
The 2025 progress report looks increasingly convincing:
- Cost savings are arriving earlier than planned. [16]
- RoTE is already in the low-teens. [17]
- Buybacks have become a regular feature, not a one-off event. [18]
Combine that with a favourable macro backdrop – UK inflation easing, rates stabilising, and domestic growth expected to recover in 2025 – and it’s easier to see why the market has rerated Barclays so aggressively this year. [19]
Analyst forecasts: still upside, but more modest after the rally
What do the professionals think from here?
Price targets
Recent consensus data shows:
- Around 14–15 analysts covering Barclays on a 12-month view.
- A median/average price target in the 454–467p range.
- High estimates around 525p, low estimates in the 337–394p corridor. [20]
With the shares at roughly 436p, that implies:
- Mid-single-digit to high-single-digit upside to the median target (roughly 6–7%). [21]
- More substantial upside if the optimistic scenarios (above 500p) play out – but also meaningful downside if the more cautious forecasts turn out to be right.
Ratings and earnings estimates
On the ratings side, consensus skews clearly positive:
- Around 11 analysts rate the stock a “Buy”, 3 a “Hold” and 1 a “Sell” in recent tallies. [22]
Earnings estimates incorporate:
- Double-digit RoTE through 2025.
- Solid net interest income from UK and consumer operations, with some volatility in investment banking fees. [23]
In short, analysts still like Barclays – but at today’s price, they’re not promising the kind of explosive upside that was on the table when the shares were stuck in “value trap” territory.
Valuation: still cheap, or fairly priced?
One reason Barclays grabbed attention in 2025 is that it combined:
- Strong improving fundamentals, and
- A valuation that still looked low compared with US peers and even some European rivals.
Even after the rally, recent commentary points out that:
- The P/E ratio is still below 12, which is not demanding for a bank delivering low-teens RoTE. [24]
- The stock trades at a relatively modest multiple of tangible book value, especially compared with large US banks that often command a premium. (This is an inference from sector comparison, not a single data point.)
Aggressive buybacks amplify the effect: when a bank repurchases shares below its estimate of intrinsic value, every pound spent can be value-accretive for remaining shareholders.
The counter-argument is that Barclays still operates in a structurally more taxed and regulated UK environment, and relies partly on capital-markets income that can be cyclical and unpredictable. [25]
So the valuation discount may never fully close to US levels – but even a partial narrowing could justify the current optimism.
Key risks investors shouldn’t ignore
The story is not risk-free, and serious investors will want to stress-test their own assumptions, not just read about the BoE’s.
Some of the main headwinds to consider:
- UK macro and credit quality
A deeper-than-expected UK downturn could hit both consumer credit and corporate loan books, driving up impairments and slowing loan growth. Credit charges have already ticked up, although they remain broadly in line with expectations. [26] - Regulatory and conduct risks
The motor finance mis-selling provision is a reminder that legacy issues can still bite, even as the strategy improves. New rules around consumer protection, capital and liquidity can also change the economics of certain products. [27] - Investment banking volatility
Barclays’ investment bank delivered better markets income but weaker deal fees versus some Wall Street peers. Cyclical weakness in M&A, ECM and DCM could weigh on future quarters if market conditions worsen. [28] - Interest-rate path
If rates fall faster or further than expected, net interest margins could compress, especially in the UK franchise, just as competition for deposits picks up. That would test the bank’s ability to keep delivering double-digit RoTE. - Valuation “air pocket” after a big run
After an 80% 12-month move, the share price is more vulnerable to disappointments. Even modest earnings misses or guidance downgrades could trigger sharp pullbacks.
What 3 December 2025 really means for Barclays shareholders
Pulling it all together, today’s combination of stress-test success and ongoing buybacks sends a clear message:
- Regulators see Barclays as well-capitalised and resilient, even in harsh scenarios. [29]
- Management is confident enough in the balance sheet and earnings power to keep retiring shares aggressively, even after a major rally. [30]
For investors, the 3 December 2025 news flow does not radically change the story – it reinforces it:
- Barclays is now behaving less like a perpetually “cheap” UK bank and more like a capital-return compounding machine.
- The easy contrarian phase of the trade is probably over; what remains is a more classic bank investment: mid-teens returns, steady buybacks, and moderate upside if management hits or slightly beats its 2025–2026 targets.
This is information, not personal advice: anyone considering BARC or BCS should factor in their own risk tolerance, portfolio mix and view on the UK and global economy. But as of 3 December 2025, the data points are lining up in a way that explains why Barclays has gone from market wallflower to one of the FTSE 100’s most closely watched financial stocks.
References
1. www.hl.co.uk, 2. www.fool.co.uk, 3. www.sharesmagazine.co.uk, 4. www.tradingview.com, 5. www.tradingview.com, 6. www.hl.co.uk, 7. finance.yahoo.com, 8. www.investegate.co.uk, 9. www.investegate.co.uk, 10. www.reuters.com, 11. www.investing.com, 12. www.reuters.com, 13. www.investegate.co.uk, 14. www.hl.co.uk, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. www.investing.com, 17. www.investegate.co.uk, 18. www.reuters.com, 19. privatebank.barclays.com, 20. markets.investorschronicle.co.uk, 21. markets.investorschronicle.co.uk, 22. www.investing.com, 23. finance.yahoo.com, 24. www.fool.co.uk, 25. www.reuters.com, 26. www.hl.co.uk, 27. www.reuters.com, 28. www.reuters.com, 29. www.sharesmagazine.co.uk, 30. www.tradingview.com
