C - Citigroup Inc.
| Previous Close | 77.05 |
| Open | 77.05 |
| Bid | 76.31 x 2900 |
| Ask | 76.47 x 2200 |
| Day's Range | 76.06 - 77.83 |
| 52 Week Range | 48.42 - 77.83 |
| Volume | 12,695,117 |
| Avg. Volume | 11,623,117 |
| Market Cap | 167B |
| Beta (5Y Monthly) | 1.81 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 10.13 |
| EPS (TTM) | 7.54 |
| Earnings Date | Jan 14, 2020 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 2.04 (2.65%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-11-01 |
| 1y Target Est | 84.69 |
- Yahoo Finance Video
Wells Fargo’s Mike Mayo: ‘We’re structurally bullish on big banks’
Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Mike Mayo joins Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round to discuss what he expects from the Fed and big banks in the year ahead.
- Barrons.com
Why Oakmark’s Bill Nygren Calls Google and Netflix Value Stocks
Veteran value investor Bill Nygren has seen his share of ups and downs, but his long-term performance warrants patience. Here’s where he’s investing now.
- MarketWatch
The 5 secrets to my financial success
OUTSIDE THE BOX What does it take to succeed financially? Pundits love to parse stock market returns, dig into the minutiae of Roth conversions and debate retirement withdrawal strategies. Yet, when asked what’s the most important financial virtue, almost all give the same answer: great savings habits.
- Financial Times
Russian central bank cuts rates for fifth time in a year
Russia’s central bank has cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent, the fifth rate cut this year as officials try to revive a moribund economy. The cut on Friday took Russia’s interest rate to its lowest level since before the 2014 Russian financial crisis, when governor Elvira Nabiullina raised it to 17 per cent and switched the rouble to a free float. The central bank said it expected inflation, which dropped from 3.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent last month, to fluctuate between 3.5 per cent and its target of 4 per cent next year, then remain at around 4 per cent the year after.
- Bloomberg
WeWork Sells Conductor Unit Back to the Founder
(Bloomberg) -- The embattled co-working company WeWork completed the first of what it hopes will be a series of asset sales by finding a buyer for Conductor, a unit that makes marketing software used by Visa Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.Seth Besmertnik, who co-founded Conductor before selling it to his college classmate Adam Neumann, will stay on as chief executive officer of the newly independent entity, the companies plan to announce Thursday. Besmertnik and other investors will contribute $15 million to fund operations and grant Conductor’s 250 or so employees majority ownership of the business through founder-class stock. Conductor and WeWork declined to disclose terms of the sale.For WeWork, selling off side businesses and turning attention back to co-working is a primary element of the turnaround plan set by the company’s new management. In October, SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to take a majority stake in WeWork, after a failed initial public offering put the company in danger of running out of money and cost Neumann the CEO job. SoftBank helped bring in new leaders, who are eliminating 2,400 jobs. WeWork is in talks to sell another business, Managed by Q, to a group of investors that includes the co-founder of that startup. And WeWork said Thursday that it’s shuttering a unit called Spacious that it acquired less than four months ago.Recent events have weighed heavily on morale inside WeWork. Conductor executives hope the new employee stock plan will raise spirits. In addition to holding a majority of stockholder votes, staff will be asked to elect a representative to the board. “This will ensure, in the long term, the company is always acting in the best interest of all the shareholders and that the employees have access to information about how we’re running the company,” Besmertnik said.Besmertnik helped start Conductor in 2010, eventually amassing more than 400 customers using its software to design marketing campaigns and optimize websites for search engines. Conductor had raised more than $60 million in venture funding, a laudable figure for a corporate software company but far from the more than $12 billion Neumann took in for WeWork.Investors had entrusted Neumann to build a global empire of office space for rent. WeWork’s valuation kept climbing, and Neumann seemed to be unstoppable. WeWork paid $126 million, not including performance bonuses, for Conductor last year. The deal would give Conductor cash to invest in research and development and double the size of that team. In return, Neumann gained a new channel of communication with Citigroup Inc., Salesforce.com Inc. and other Conductor customers right as WeWork was trying to recruit larger companies, which made up 25% of its membership at the time.The deal also reunited Besmertnik with Neumann, nearly two decades after they met as students at Baruch College in New York City. Both men dropped out to pursue business careers before returning later to earn degrees. Onstage at an industry conference a month after the acquisition, Besmertnik embraced Neumann, who greeted Conductor employees as family. “Welcome home,” Neumann said.Besmertnik said that while WeWork’s meltdown has been hard on the Conductor team, he’s grateful to have been a part of the company. Artie Minson, one of two men who replaced Neumann as CEO, praised Besmertnik in an emailed statement and said the divestiture is “a positive step forward for both WeWork and Conductor.” The buyout was partly financed by Besmertnik, along with Selina Eizik, the chief operating officer at Conductor, and Jason Finger, a founder of the Grubhub Inc.-owned food delivery app Seamless.Speaking from his New York office, which is lined with action figures and features a whiteboard covered in inspirational quotes (“The world is a reflection of you.”), Besmertnik said he’s focused on enforcing a strong company culture and a “people-first approach.” He hopes the new stock ownership program for employees sets an example for other businesses to follow, he said: “I’ve always felt the system wasn’t fair. If there happens to be a new CEO or a new board that doesn’t have the same willingness to fight for the people, employees stand to get the short end of the stick.”(Updates with Spacious closure in the third paragraph.)To contact the author of this story: Candy Cheng in San Francisco at ccheng86@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMeyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Banks to End 2019 With Upbeat Trading and IB Performance
Strong trading and investment banking performance will support banks' fee income growth in Q4.
- Reuters
Citi, Credit Suisse drop China's Ucommune U.S. IPO over valuation -sources
SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc and Credit Suisse Group AG have dropped out of the U.S. initial public offering of Chinese shared workspace provider Ucommune, baulking at its desired valuation, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Earlier filings had named Citigroup and Credit Suisse, but both walked away over the past few days because they could not agree an achievable valuation with Ucommune, the people said, declining to be identified because the information was private.
- Financial Times
Saudi Aramco touches $2tn valuation on second day of trading
Saudi Aramco’s shares rose 10 per cent during its second day of trading on Thursday, pushing the state oil group’s valuation above $2tn. Shares climbed by the maximum daily limit to SR38.7 before profit-taking pushed the price down, according to the website of Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange. for the company has long been sought by Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Riyadh has worked to backstop the flotation to ensure its success.
- Financial Times
Swiss central bank warns on climate change activism
The Swiss National Bank warned on Thursday against the politicisation of monetary policy with climate change activism, even as it sought to damp public disquiet over its now five-year-old policy of negative interest rates. In its final quarterly monetary policy assessment of the year, the SNB said it would maintain rates at minus 0.75 per cent, warning of a highly “fragile” environment for the Swiss franc and perilous consequences for Swiss manufacturing and exporters should the currency be allowed to appreciate. Just weeks after Christine Lagarde floated the possibility of the European Central Bank taking a more active approach in combating climate change, however, the SNB rejected the notion that its financial clout should be used for anything other than monetary policy.
- Bloomberg
No End in Sight for Foreign Exodus From Thailand’s Stock Market
(Bloomberg) -- The world’s worst-performing stock market may have a tough time luring back fleeing foreign investors, with its struggling economy poised to erode corporate earnings further.Thailand’s benchmark SET Index has slid 5.2% this quarter, the most among major global stock markets. At the same time, international funds have pulled $759 million in the period, adding to a $1.49 billion sell-off in the three months through September.“The economy continues to struggle, and that’s leading to earnings downgrades for a lot of companies,” said Gordon Fraser, who helps manage about $45 billion as a global emerging-market equities fund manager at BlackRock Inc. in Hong Kong. “It’s not a country we’re particularly compelled to add capital to right now.”Fall out from the U.S.-China trade dispute and the strongest emerging-market currency this year after Russia’s ruble have hurt tourism and exports in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy. Concern about companies’ earnings prospects will continue to keep most investors away from Thai equities, according to the nation’s $31 billion Government Pension Fund.The Thai government forecasts 2019 economic growth will slow to 2.6%, the weakest in five years, while most of the 100 largest companies on the country’s exchange reported July-to-September earnings that were lower than analysts’ estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was the fourth straight quarter of worse-than-expected results, the data showed.“It’s difficult to expect any large buying of Thai stocks any time soon with the poor earnings and the current state of domestic and global economies,” said Vitai Ratanakorn, head of the state-owned pension fund.Citigroup Inc.’s view aligns with that of the Government Pension Fund. It said Wednesday that it expects earnings-per-share for the benchmark stock index may be subject to more cuts, taking 2020 EPS growth toward no more than 6% compared with market expectations of 12%. “Stay defensive; the market is not cheap due to low EPS growth,” the bank’s strategists including Kritapas Siripassorn wrote in a note.A historical pattern of foreign fund outflows in the fourth quarter will damp any “significant gains” in Thai stocks, according to SCB Asset Management Co., the nation’s biggest private money manager.Foreign funds have net sold Thai equities in every October-to-December period since 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The benchmark stock measure’s 14-day relative strength index is below the 30 level that some analysts consider a signal that it’s oversold.“Overseas investors are already in holiday mood and prefer to hold less exposure to Thai equities while they are away,” said Pornthep Jubandhu, the head of investment research at SCB Asset, which manages about $50 billion of assets. Still, local investors such as mutual and pension funds remain optimistic that government spending can trigger a revival in stock prices, and they may get tempted by attractive valuations, he said.(Adds Citigroup Inc.’s index view in seventh paragraph.)\--With assistance from Abhishek Vishnoi.To contact the reporters on this story: Anuchit Nguyen in Bangkok at anguyen@bloomberg.net;Lilian Karunungan in Singapore at lkarunungan@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, ;Tomoko Yamazaki at tyamazaki@bloomberg.net, Margo Towie, Cecile VannucciFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Fed 'prepared to adjust' balance sheet to prevent repo market flare-up
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the Fed could "adjust the details" of its balance sheet policies and repo operations to prevent another flare-up in money markets.
- Reuters
UPDATE 2-Second U.S. law firm files London forex class action
U.S law firm Hausfeld has filed a lawsuit in London against major banks over alleged foreign exchange (forex) rigging in a bid to take over a high-profile British class action from compatriot Scott & Scott. The new action, called FX Claim UK, seeks damages from Barclays, Citibank, RBS, JPMorgan , UBS and MUFG Bank over their role in forex spot trading cartels between 2007 and 2013 and was filed at London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) on Wednesday.
- Zacks
UBS Group's (UBS) Bid Dismissed in U.S. Government Lawsuit
UBS Group's (UBS) plea to dismiss a U.S. government lawsuit accusing the bank for making investors' suffer "catastrophic" losses in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) has been annulled.
- Business Wire
Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group and Hildebrandt Consulting Issue 2020 Citi Hildebrandt Client Advisory
Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group and Hildebrandt Consulting today released their 2020 Citi Hildebrandt Client Advisory, which establishes the broad landscape for the law firm industry, how firms are responding to industry challenges and their best opportunities for growth in the year ahead.
- Financial Times
BofA chief joins chorus of bank bosses predicting strong end to year
Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan has joined a chorus of US bankers predicting a strong end to the year for trading and investment banking. Mr Moynihan told investors on Wednesday that the two divisions would record higher fourth-quarter revenues than a year earlier, a day after upbeat remarks from senior executives at Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. fourth quarter in some of Wall Street’s biggest businesses in 2018, including double-digit percentage declines in fixed-income revenues at each of the big five banks in a period when investment banking revenues also fell for all major players except JPMorgan.
- MarketWatch
Lending standards to slide for homeowners with spotty credit, Moody’s warns in 2020 outlook
Shrinking home affordability and increased competition among lenders are poised to lead to lower loan standards for homeowners with less-than-stellar credit, Moody’s warns in year-ahead mortgage bond outlook.
- Yahoo Finance
Why Wells Fargo’s Mike Mayo is ‘banking on tech’
When it comes to investing in bank stocks, a flattening yield curve, Fed rate cuts and illiquid capital markets are typically considered red flags that send investors running for the hills.
- Bloomberg
Intel Is First to Share Detailed Pay Disparities. It’s Not Flattering.
(Bloomberg) -- It’s not really a surprise that white and Asian men dominate the top pay tiers among Intel’s U.S. workforce. That’s been true in the tech industry for years. What’s unusual is the excruciating level of detail about pay disparity the chipmaker is releasing Tuesday to the public—information it could have kept secret.In addition to its annual update on the outlook for women and people of color at the company, Intel on Tuesday released the results of a new report it sent to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that gives unprecedented pay, race and gender data for about 51,000 U.S. workers. Intel is the first company to release the otherwise private data.The results are not flattering. Among 52 top executives at Intel, who all earn more than $208,000—the top pay band the EEOC tracks—29 are white men, 11 are Asian men and 8 are white women. The remaining tally is 1 each for Asian women, Hispanic women, black women and black men, with no Hispanic men among executives in that top tier.The ratio was similarly skewed across manager, professional and technician job classifications, with white and Asian men dominating top pay groups and women and people of color clustered in the lower bands. One in four white men at Intel are in the top salary tier, earning at least $208,000, a higher share than any other group. Rates are far lower for women and underrepresented minorities; less than 10% of black employees are top earners. “It’s difficult to really fix what you aren’t being transparent about,” said Barbara Whye, Intel’s chief diversity and inclusion officer and a vice president in human resources. The chipmaker is making itself “very vulnerable,” she says, to “do the right things,” and she hopes her peers will follow and share pay information, too. “These are industry-wide problems,” Whye said. “They are going to require industry-wide solutions to resolve them.” So far, no other companies have said they’ll do the same. Intel joins a small but growing number of companies that have released gender and racial pay data, often under pressure from investors. The transparency may be laudable, but it is often overshadowed by what is revealed. Annual diversity reports from the biggest tech companies from the last half decade have shown scant progress in advancing the numbers of under-represented workers.Companies that choose to release this kind of information risk backlash. Citigroup this year faced criticism after it voluntarily released median pay data that showed women at the bank earn 29% less than men do.Intel’s report finds that within job types—not just at the top—white men dominate the highest salary band. Two-thirds of employees fall into a job group called “professionals,” which includes includes non-managerial office workers and programmers. Nearly all earn at least $80,000 per year, but white and Asian men have the highest salaries. Black, Hispanic and other minorities are overrepresented in the bottom half of the pay ranges. Even if the numbers look bad, companies will ultimately benefit more from leading on disclosure than they would from dragging their heels, said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, which pressures companies to disclose gender pay data. The point is not to beat up on organizations for telling the truth, she said. “It's much more important to have an accurate reflection of reality than to glaze over the simple truth,” she said. “These companies are not as diverse and equal as they could be.”In 2015, Intel set a goal to have women make up at least 26% of its workforce by 2020. The company met that last year and is working to increase the percentage of women among top executives now to 26%, too, Whye said. Intel says representation among its total U.S. workforce and for technical employees has improved—underrepresented workers make up 15.8% of the company up from 14.6% last year. Women as a percentage of the workforce fell slightly to 26.5% from 26.8%.Intel announced in January that it had met its goal of equal pay for men and women who do the same work. This EEOC data does not measure that.Overrepresentation of white men in the highest-paying jobs contributes to the nation’s wage gap: American women earn 20% less than men do, and the gap is even wider for women of color. Intel’s disclosure shows that these disparities can’t be fixed simply by raising the salaries of women and minorities. Whye said the company’s task is to help underrepresented groups get promoted into more lucrative roles and keep them there. The data provided to the EEOC covered 2017 and 2018 and was collected from nearly all U.S. companies for the first time this fall under an initiative started by President Barack Obama. By law, the forms stay private unless a company makes them public. This could be the only time the EEOC collects worker pay broken down by race, sex and ethnicity, making Intel’s disclosure a unique window into company compensation, and how it results in wage gaps. The agency has been soliciting the data since July and could continue to do so until January under a federal judge’s order. But the EEOC has said it won’t pursue future collections in this form. In the U.K. where companies are required to publicly report wage gaps between male and female workers, the disclosures have shown the benefits and limits of transparency, said Harini Iyengar, a lawyer who advocates for equal pay in Britain. “A lot of members of the public who don't pay an interest generally in labor market issues are quite shocked at the scale of the pay disparity,” she said. “So that's been very positive because people are genuinely shocked.” But so far the nationwide initiative has not resulted in measurable change, she said: “What I'm seeing is collective hand-wringing about, ‘Oh no, this is not good enough. But look everyone else in our industry sectors is in the same boat. So that's all right then.’” (Corrects top executives chart to reflect that values show the total number of executives rather than the share. Updates third paragraph with context about highest paid Hispanic executives. )\--With assistance from Lucy Meakin and Paige Smith.To contact the authors of this story: Jeff Green in Southfield at jgreen16@bloomberg.netHannah Recht in New York at hrecht@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Philip Gray at philipgray@bloomberg.net, Rebecca GreenfieldFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Morgan Stanley Slashes 2% Jobs Amid Tough Operating Backdrop
Morgan Stanley (MS) is reducing workforce to control expenses as its top line is likely to be under pressure in the coming days.
- Business Wire
Citi Leads £625MM Financing for Jaguar Land Rover Automotive with a First-Ever UK Export Finance Guarantee Issued Under its General Export Facility Program
Citi, together with a syndicate of international banks, completed a £625 million term loan facility with Jaguar Land Rover Automotive plc in October this year. The facility is backed by a £500 million guarantee from UK Export Finance under its new General Export Facility programme (GEF).
- Zacks
Citigroup (C) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know
Citigroup (C) closed at $75.33 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.63% move from the prior day.
- Bloomberg
South Africa Hit by Record Blackouts, Raising Recession Risk
(Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Next Africa newsletter and follow Bloomberg Africa on TwitterSouth Africa’s state power company intensified rolling blackouts to a record, signaling a deepening crisis at the debt-ridden utility and raising the risk of a second recession in as many years.Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said on Monday it will move to Stage 6 load-shedding from 6 p.m. local time, meaning it will cut 6,000 megawatts from the national grid, after a technical problem at the giant new Medupi Power Station curbed supply. That’s the biggest cut yet. The utility downgraded the status to Stage 4 as of 10 p.m.The utility is curbing power for a fifth straight day as it struggles with breakdowns at plants and heavy rains that have soaked coal used as fuel. The blackouts have a debilitating effect on the economy by curtailing mining and factory output and causing crippling traffic delays.“It does mean that the economy is heading for a recession,” Iraj Abedian, chief executive officer of Pan-African Investments and Research Services, said by phone from Johannesburg. “There’s no way that hot on the heels of the previous quarter’s negative growth in GDP with this type of humongous and material disruption to the continuity of business that the economy can register positive growth.”South Africa’s statistics office announced last week that gross domestic product shrank an annualized 0.6% in the three months through September. Power cuts also dented the economy in the first quarter, when it contracted the most in a decade, led by a drop in manufacturing, mining and agriculture outputEskom’s announcement marked the end of a torrid day on Twitter for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. His weekly letter to the nation highlighting how Medupi is a fitting symbol of the importance of state-owned companies was derided on the social-media site.At 10 p.m. local time he issued a statement commiserating with his countrymen.“The ongoing load-shedding is devastating for the country. It is causing our economy great harm and disrupting the lives of citizens,” he said. “The anger and frustration that this load-shedding has caused is understandable.”Municipalities were also caught off guard, with Johannesburg electricity distributor City Power saying it has no load-shedding schedule for Stage 6.The one thing that could prevent GDP from dipping as deep as it did in the first quarter is the fact that many businesses are winding down as the Christmas holidays approach.Growth would have to rebound about 0.8% in the fourth quarter to reach the government’s forecast of a 0.5% expansion in the three-month period, said Gina Schoeman, an economist at Citigroup South Africa. The economy is unlikely to grow that much, she said.Weak economic growth could lead to a further deterioration in public finances and heighten the risk of South Africa losing its last investment-grade credit rating with Moody’s Investors Service. The company cut the outlook of the nation’s Baa3 assessments to negative last month.Load-shedding at Stage 6 is “no cause for alarm as the system is being effectively controlled,” Eskom said in a statement. “Eskom’s emergency response command centre and technical teams will be working through the night to restore units as soon as possible.”Mining companies say they are probably bearing the full brunt of load-shedding because they are among the heaviest users of electricity. Sibanye Gold Ltd., the country’s biggest private employer, has to reduce power use by 20% during load-shedding, said spokesman James Wellsted.“It’s concerning and if it continues for a long time it will impact on production and the entire industry, not to mention the economy,” he said before Stage 6 load-shedding was announced.(Updates with latest from Eskom in second paragraph)\--With assistance from Felix Njini, Antony Sguazzin and Paul Vecchiatto.To contact the reporters on this story: Prinesha Naidoo in Johannesburg at pnaidoo7@bloomberg.net;Rene Vollgraaff in Johannesburg at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Liezel HillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- MarketWatch
Someone paying $120,000 for a banana duct-taped to a wall at Art Basel is the perfect picture of wealth inequality
Art sales and auctions have been setting records, which could be another sign of the wealth gap, according to a Citi report
- Barrons.com
Citigroup and 23 More Dividend Stocks That Offer Shelter in Today’s Economy
Now that the U.S. economy is expanding less quickly, stocks with the fastest and most sustainable dividend growth are worth considering, according to a recent research note by UBS.
- MarketWatch
Financial stocks get a big boost from jobs data
Financial stocks got a big lift in premarket trading Friday, as much stronger-than-expected November jobs data provided a boost to the sector and the broader stock market. The SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF rallied 1.1%, after trading unchanged just before the data. Among the sector tracker's heavily weighted components, gains in the shares of Bank of America Corp. increased to 2.0% from 0.4%, Citigroup Inc. to 1.7% from 0.3%, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to 1.3% from less than 0.1% and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to 1.3% from 0.3%. The U.S. Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 266,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate returned to a 50-year low of 3.5% from 3.6%, compared with expectations of 180,000 jobs. Gains in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF to 0.7% from 0.2%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF to 0.7% from 0.1% and the Invesco QQQ ETF to 0.8% from 0.2%.
