A big achievement for Barclays shares
A rally of almost 50% since October includes a trend break that is exciting independent analyst Alistair Strang.
8th April 2024 07:39
by Alistair Strang from Trends and Targets
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![Barclays bank branch 600](https://media-prod.ii.co.uk/s3fs-public/2023-09/Barc_0.jpg)
Last week, Barclays (LSE:BARC)' share price actually did something interesting. From our perspective, the interest doesn’t reside in the fact it achieved our 191.4p target, but rather the fact the market actually permitted the share price to close Thursday very slightly above this target level.
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Despite a near certainty the share price shall mess around a bit at the current level, possibly even discovering an excuse to retreat to 183p with secondary, if broken, at 173p, we’d not be immediately alarmed as movements such as this just fall into the criteria of “share prices can go down and up”, rather than establishing a strong trend.
In fact, should 173p make an appearance, there’s a pretty fair argument in favour of taking a long position with a seriously tight stop as we suspect another return to the 191p level shall be on the cards.
We’re making a bit of noise about this, thanks to that Blue downtrend line on the chart, which dates back to 2007.
However, the adrenalin is flowing due to Barclays now achieving a fairly important Big Picture movement. It's one which effectively forces us to take cognisance of the long-term Blue line as it allows a scenario where this retail bank finds itself in a position where a four letter word describes the future - HOPE.
Now above 194.2p should apparently prove capable of triggering share price movement to an initial 220p with our secondary, if exceeded, at a future 251p. Perhaps we are placing a lot of emphasis on a positive movement of just a couple of pence, but it feels like the market is taking cognisance of the same trend we are.
If Barclays intends a return to the days of clown school, the share price needs below 155p to justify serious concern.
![barc070424.jpg](https://media-prod.ii.co.uk/s3fs-public/2024-04/barc070424.jpg)
Source: Trends and Targets. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Alistair Strang has led high-profile and "top secret" software projects since the late 1970s and won the original John Logie Baird Award for inventors and innovators. After the financial crash, he wanted to know "how it worked" with a view to mimicking existing trading formulas and predicting what was coming next. His results speak for themselves as he continually refines the methodology.
Alistair Strang is a freelance contributor and not a direct employee of Interactive Investor. All correspondence is with Alistair Strang, who for these purposes is deemed a third-party supplier. Buying, selling and investing in shares is not without risk. Market and company movement will affect your performance and you may get back less than you invest. Neither Alistair Strang or Interactive Investor will be responsible for any losses that may be incurred as a result of following a trading idea.
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