Following a nine percent decline on its stock price, Barclays said today that “there is absolutely no substance to those rumors [about us taking a gigantic writedown]” and denied plans to force chief executive John Varley and/or investment bank head Robert Diamond into early retirement and we totally believe them. Disclosure: we believed Citigroup when it said its losses were only around $3 billion, John Mack when he said Morgan Stanley wouldn’t take a $3.7 billion charge from its debt trading operation, Bear Stearns when it said there was still value left in those two hedge funds, and Jimmy Cayne, when he swore it was a ten pound bag of oregano in the bottom drawer of his desk. B-Clays wouldn’t say whether or not the bank will issue an emergency statement, so maybe it will, even if it didn’t lose a bunch of money, provided the Journal doesn’t get cold feet about running its exposé on Varley’s inability to conquer his smack habit*.

Barclays Rejects Talk It Faces $10 Bln Writedown [Reuters via NYT]
*prove me wrong.