The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Barclays PLC made its own visit to the so-called confessional this morning, disclosing $2.67 billion in subprime driven write downs (hat tip, Calculated Risk). From the story:
Barclays PLC Thursday disclosed net charges and write-downs totaling £1.3 billion ($2.67 billion) at Barclays Capital, but announced strong pretax profit for the unit, in a move to end speculation over the size of its exposure to the subprime mortgage crisis … The announcement came two weeks ahead of the bank’s scheduled Nov. 27 trading update and followed a period of extreme volatility in Barclays shares, as investors feared the bank was sitting on huge undisclosed losses linked to its exposure to the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown. Trading in Barclays stock was halted last Friday and the bank issued a statement denying speculation that it was about to announce £10 billion of write-downs.
