Barclays' path to 300p-plus

Barclays Bank (LSE:BARC)

Barclays has an immediate magic number at 219.718p currently, the share needing to close above this point to convince us some real movement is perhaps around the corner.

It's not a great secret understanding where this number appears - the 'blue' immediate downtrend on the chart gives a decent clue.

It is absolutely critical that the share price find an excuse to actually close above 'blue' sometime soon, as otherwise the share remains trading in a region where weakness to 193p, maybe even 182p is possible.

We're inclined to take some hope from recent movements as we'd expected weakness below 220p to promote drops in 20p increments. This appears to be slightly wrong with reversals opting to bounce at the 205p level. Perhaps it's a sign of hidden strength in this bank?

Should this be the case, the immediate situation suggests trades above 220.2p will encourage near-term growth toward 227p, with secondary of 243p if such an ambition is bettered.

The secondary is quite a big deal, enabling us to suggest it can be ignored as this will transport the share price into Big Picture territory where 254p will make rather more sense as a stutter point in any rising cycle.

As always, there's a fly in the ointment and, amazingly, it's at the 243p level anytime now and shown to coincide with the 'dashed light blue' downtrend since 2015.

Our inclination is to suspect the market will opt to 'gap' the price over such a hurdle, something which is proving increasingly common as the UK marketplace attempts to bypass lack of trading pressure and, instead, push a price into the action area.

In the case of Barclays, this will imply we should mention a point beyond 254p at a presumably distant 322p!

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser.

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.