big dip in Barclays share price

Brie

was doing an account review today and spotted something I've never seen before.

at 3:20 the share price was 167.78 with a volume sale of 302.9k
at 3:25 the share price dropped to 161.96 with a sale volume of 5.4m!!
at 3:30 the share price was up again to 168.60 with a sale volume of 457.9k

Now I can understand how a massive sale of shares might make a significant shift in the price but an even greater volume was traded at 3:45 (6.1M ) but the price remained high at 168.40.  Obviously not all trades will be at the same price but I guess that's an average.  

Does any one have any logic they can shed on this??

bd10

hi, just had a look in Reuters, 1-minute OHLC bars:

15:27pm

5,130,000 shares traded

open: 168.10 (up from 15:26 bar)

high: 168.24

close: 168.24

15:49pm

5,435,000 shares traded

open: 168.24

high: 168.44

close: 168.40

Looking at the a minute bars either side of these two periods, doesn't look strange to me. Two large clips were bought, prices were bid up a little from 14p first instance, 16-20p second instance.

masonic

Could this be an example of a late reported trade? It aligns quite well with pricing in the first few minutes after the market opened.

masonic

If you download the data from LSE, you'll see there was actually a total of £16.4m traded off-book and off-exchange at the 161.96 price, all reported between 15:26-15:48 BST. Note the exact same pattern of volume and value in the two pairs of trades reported. No other trades in the 161.9-162.1 range were made after 08:20 BST. Perhaps not a coincidence that the market opened at 161.96.

Brie

I know Barclays does sharepurchase at the beginning of each month (don't ask me how I know.....) so possibly that may be it??  60k employees possibly buying £50 each (to max their share matching over the year) would be 3.6M shares at one time.  

adindas

Brie said:

I know Barclays does sharepurchase at the beginning of each month (don't ask me how I know.....) so possibly that may be it??  60k employees possibly buying £50 each (to max their share matching over the year) would be 3.6M shares at one time.  

Indeed there is significant volume movement September 1 and 2 which is reflected in the price.  This is 5-days and 1 day range in the chart.

In term of stock valuation among UK banks, Barclays is the most attractive one in my personal opinion.

Your information regarding monthly massive simultaneous Barclay's employees share purchases When did this suggestion to employees start and when will it end ?