These people at Barclays just had an epic quarter. Don't be deceived

Are you ready for Barclays' third quarter results? Admittedly, they're not out until October 29 and we have a raft of US bank releases in the intervening weeks, but they'll be imbued with exceptional significance in light of the British bank's imminent change of CEO. 

As we've reported before, Barclays' preferred business areas over the past two years have been IBD (M&A, equity capital markets, and debt capital markets) and equities sales and trading.

Unfortunately, these two business areas haven't been doing too well in 2015. Both performed anemically in the first quarter. Neither redeemed itself in the second. 

Fortunately, the third quarter is likely to provide some respite to the bad numbers, especially for people in Barclays' equities sales and trading business.

Chirantan Barua, analyst at Bernstein Research is predicted that third quarter revenues in Barclays' equities sales and trading business will be up a massive 33% year-on-year in Q3. This compared to a modest 9% increase at J.P. Morgan and a mere 12% increase at Bank of America.

Time to celebrate?

Not exactly. Barua predicts that Barclays' year-on-year equities numbers will only be up impressively because its equities revenues in Q3 2014 were whacked by last year's murky revelations concerning its dark pool.  Barclays is rebuilding share in its equities business. That's a good thing, but it's far from a straightforward growth story.