British bank Barclays on Wednesday reported slight beats on the top and bottom line in the first quarter, boosted by stronger investment bank performance.Pre-tax profit came in at £2.7 billion ($3.6 billion), up 11% year-on-year and ahead of analyst expectations of £2.49 billion, according to LSEG. Group revenues hit £7.7 billion, above an analyst projection of £7.33 billion.Income from investment banking, its most profitable division, increased 16% to £3.87 billion.Barclays’ return on tangible equity, a measure of profitability, reached 14 % in the first quarter, after averaging 7.5% in the December quarter.Key to investors is how Barclays navigates its sizable U.S. exposure in the market storm unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s global trade tariffs. Notably, Barclays has had a significant presence Stateside since acquiring the investment banking and capital markets businesses of collapsed Wall Street titan Lehman Brothers for $1.75 billion.Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday, Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said he was expecting “fairly high market volatility” going forward.”It’s calmer now but I imagine it will continue to go up and down. Beyond that, as you’ve seen in our results, that market volatility helps us help clients manage their risk, we can do so in a profitable way that helps them as well and helps markets income, as long as you manage your risk well,” he said, pointing to strong fixed income trading as a highlight from the earnings.Venkatakrishnan continued, “I think, going forward, the longer this goes on, the greater economic uncertainty there is, which is putting companies off from making decisions. Individuals also take time to make decisions, you could have a risk of a slowdown in economic activity.””Even though we have a good starting point, we have to be prepared” for a range of scenarios, he told CNBC, including economic weakness in its major markets of the U.K …
