Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Barclays looking a little accident-prone

[Legal Beagles]

Oh dear, it's Barclays again. There was a good explanation last night for why Barclays needed, for a second time in just over a week, to borrow heavily from the Bank of England's standing facility. The reasons seem to be more down to technical factors (see story on page 48) than liquidity problems, but it scarcely removes the embarrassment. Barclays seems to be becoming distinctly accident-prone. Among the big high street banks, it has received far more than its fair share of knocks in the present credit crunch.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Bank of England frets as R word looms

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was much mocked, not least by this column, when he said earlier this year that he thought there was a one-third chance of recession. My own amusement was not so much with the substance of Mr Greenspan's analysis as the spectacle of someone who used to speak only in runes suddenly expressing himself so plainly. Nonetheless, the one-third probability was by no means a consensus view at the time.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Time for Bank to throw off the hair shirt?

Could the Bank of England have prevented the calamity of Northern Rock by providing more generalised assistance to markets at an earlier stage? With the credit crunch possibly moving into a second phase, the question has taken on renewed importance.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Banks stab at sub-prime losses

Citigroup?s chief financial officer, Garry Crittenden, was nothing if not candid when questioned yesterday about whether the extra $8bn to $11bn (£3.8bn to £5.3bn) in sub-prime write-downs announced over the weekend would be sufficient. ?We?ve taken what we think is a reasonable stab,? he said. Reasonable stab? Well that really is reassuring.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Banking meltdown, hedge fund heaven

I hate to be alarmist, but stock markets seem ready to crash. They've got that feel about them, with a real sense of fear beginning to take hold among investors. Some might say they already are crashing, with the correction from yearly peaks now again approaching 10 per cent.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Bank of England's gloomy prognosis

You'll be pleased to know that Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, doesn't lie awake at night wondering whether the Northern Rock debacle has damaged his chances of a second term of office. Indeed, he as yet hasn't thought about a second term at all, or at least that's what he said yesterday. Mmm... Yet he is surely right to insist there are rather weightier matters to think about.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Barclays reassures, but what of the future?

You'll be relieved to know that there are no black holes at Barclays, just as the management had previously intimated. Despite £1.3bn of charges in respect of credit, mortgage and leveraged finance writedowns, revenue and pre-tax profits in the 10 months to the end of October were at record levels.

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[Legal Beagles]

Jeremy Warner's Outlook: Bankers look forward to mergers frenzy

Fee-hungry investment bankers dismayed by the collapse in M & A activity can be comforted by the thought that there is one sector at least that will see unprecedented corporate activity next year ? banking itself. The collapse in prices for banking assets makes the sector wide open for opportunistic acquisition making by those with the capital strength to take advantage.

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