Barclays PLC $BCS Shares Sold by Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA

Key Points

• Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA reduced its stake by 12.4%, selling 115,132 shares and ending the quarter with 815,234 Barclays shares valued at about $20.75 million.
• Analyst consensus is "Hold"—three analysts rate Barclays a Buy and four rate it a Hold, with recent notable action including a Zacks downgrade from Strong-Buy to Hold.
• Barclays beat quarterly expectations, reporting $0.46 EPS versus $0.42 expected and $9.53B in revenue versus $9.23B, while the stock trades near $23.95 with a market cap of ~$82.6B and recently paid a $0.3069 dividend (payout ratio ~25%).

Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA reduced its stake in shares of Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) by 12.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 815,234 shares of the financial services provider's stock after selling 115,132 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA's holdings in Barclays were worth $20,748,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Illumine Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Barclays during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $2,195,000. Todd Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of Barclays by 4.0% during the 3rd quarter. Todd Asset Management LLC now owns 3,516,095 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $72,678,000 after purchasing an additional 134,560 shares during the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its position in shares of Barclays by 10.4% during the 3rd quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 1,830,351 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $37,833,000 after purchasing an additional 172,944 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. raised its position in shares of Barclays by 226.9% during the 3rd quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 262,678 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $5,430,000 after purchasing an additional 182,318 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Voya Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Barclays by 39.5% during the 3rd quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 146,796 shares of the financial services provider's stock worth $3,034,000 after purchasing an additional 41,585 shares during the last quarter. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on BCS. Zacks Research downgraded Barclays from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, March 19th. Erste Group Bank reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Barclays in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an "overweight" rating on shares of Barclays in a research note on Wednesday, February 11th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a "buy (b-)" rating on shares of Barclays in a research note on Tuesday, December 23rd. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a "neutral" rating on shares of Barclays in a research note on Thursday, January 22nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Barclays currently has a consensus rating of "Hold".

Barclays Stock Up 0.1%

BCS stock opened at $23.95 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $82.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.46, a PEG ratio of 0.45 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.45, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39. Barclays PLC has a one year low of $14.32 and a one year high of $27.70. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $23.18 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $23.24.

Barclays (NYSE:BCS - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 10th. The financial services provider reported $0.46 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.42 by $0.04. Barclays had a net margin of 21.91% and a return on equity of 8.33%. The firm had revenue of $9.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $9.23 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Barclays PLC will post 2 EPS for the current year.

Barclays Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 20th were paid a dividend of $0.3069 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 20th. This represents a dividend yield of 236.0%. Barclays's payout ratio is currently 25.33%.

Barclays Profile

Barclays PLC NYSE: BCS is a British multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in London. The firm provides a broad range of banking and financial products to individual, corporate and institutional customers. Its core activities span retail and business banking, credit cards and payments, corporate and investment banking, and wealth and investment management.

In retail and business banking, Barclays offers deposit accounts, mortgages, personal and business loans, and card services.

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