Citi Sees Decline in Trading, No Clear Mass Exit for Citi Holdings

Banking, finance, and taxes

Published: May 27, 2014 2:21 pm

Citigroup Inc. (C) shares may still be up on the day, but shares have handily pulled back from their peak on Tuesday. Citi’s Chief Financial Officer is John Gerspach, and he has been speaking at the Deutsche Bank 2014 Global Financial Services Investor Conference on Tuesday. The net effect is that trading revenues are projected to decline, with a projection that the bank will correct its capital plan SNAFU from earlier in 2014.

Gerspach said he was deeply disappointed when the bank’s capital plan was rejected. Citi’s ultimate aim is to return more capital to shareholders. In a restructuring effort, the bank claims to be pleased but says there is more to do. It will continue to resize its mortgage business and close more branch offices.

What may have hurt on top of the projection that consumer revenues would be flat this quarter compared to the first quarter is the prediction that trading revenue could be down 20% to 25% from a year ago for the second quarter. Another negative is that the bank sees it institutional revenues decreasing as well – driven by lower trading volume.

Where another issue may be taken is a bit of a split on the Citi plans. Gerspach said that the banks knows what needs to be fixed on its capital plan. But on a restructuring effort, Gerspach also said that he does not see an opportunity for a large scale sale of the unwanted Citi Holdings assets and operations.

At any rate, Citigroup shares were trading up $0.21 at $57.50 so far on Monday, but the stock had previously traded as high as $48.35 on Tuesday. Its 52-week trading range is $45.06 to $55.28.

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