London, Jan 16, 2026, 07:54 GMT — Premarket
- Barclays said it bought 2.07 million shares for cancellation under its ongoing buyback.
- The stock last closed up 0.9% at 484.3 pence.
- Focus shifts to UK inflation on Jan. 21 and Barclays’ Feb. 10 results.
Barclays PLC BARC.L said on Friday it bought 2,065,985 shares on Jan. 15 under its buyback programme and will cancel them, putting the stock on watch ahead of the London open. The repurchase takes the total bought back since Oct. 23 to 77.2 million shares, the bank said. Barclays last closed up 0.9% at 484.3 pence.
The backdrop is a UK market that just printed fresh highs. The FTSE 100 closed at a record on Thursday after data showed Britain’s economy grew 0.3% in November, its fastest pace since June. Axel Rudolph, senior financial analyst at IG, called the GDP beat “a potential catalyst for inflows” into UK equities, even as traders stuck with roughly 40 basis points (0.40 percentage point) of Bank of England rate cuts by September. Reuters
Rate expectations are still doing the heavy lifting for banks. “The data are by no means strong,” said Kallum Pickering, chief economist at Peel Hunt, while Andrew Wishart at Berenberg said the UK economy “has lost momentum since the summer.” The next UK CPI inflation data are due on Jan. 21. Reuters
In late New York trade, Barclays’ U.S.-listed shares were little changed at $25.90.
Buybacks are mechanical but they matter at the margin. A share buyback is simply a company repurchasing its own stock; cancelling those shares reduces the count, which can lift earnings per share (profit per share) if the business delivers.
The bigger swing factor for Barclays remains Washington, not London. President Trump has called for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, and Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said Barclays’ U.S. card operations account for around 11% of group profits.
Investors also have a clear diary marker: Barclays’ full-year 2025 results on Feb. 10, when it has said it will announce new financial and operational targets through 2028.
