Shaded Diamond

Difficult times make a merit out of mediocrity. Barclays’ 3% growth in underlying profits last year doesn’t look so bad when some of its chosen peers, like Citigroup and UBS, have been laid low by their investment banks. That will be a reassurance to investors who, in marking down Barclays shares 10% this year, have been relatively light in their punishment. Shares in other European banks have dropped 18%. Even so, the UK group’s own investment bank, Barclays Capital, isn’t out of the woods yet....