Just looking at the numbers and comparing the estimate to earnings from the previous year would shock most investors. The explanation behind this is that the company is absorbing $3.5 billion in legal and repositioning charges against its fourth quarter.
It will be interesting to see how the “core-Citi” earnings come in during the first half of 2015. Oppenheimer recently raised its price target to $70 from $67, and the $60.12 consensus price target implies potential upside of almost 11% from the $54.11 year-end close.
On January 8, an analyst call for Citigroup was made by J.P. Morgan that maintained a Neutral rating but slightly lowered its price target to $54. That price target implies an upside of 12% from current prices. However, Barclays had a different view when it maintained an Overweight rating and raised its price target to $65 from $60, just the day before. The Barclays price target implies upside of 35%.
The 2015 estimates from Oppenheimer were reduced slightly — to $5.51 from $5.56 — due to flow-through from loan growth and the reduction of trading revenues.
Another key metric to note is that the stock trades at less than 0.8 times book value.
Late in Wednesday’s trading session, shares of Citigroup were down over 3% to $48.16, in a 52-week trading range of $45.18 to $56.95. Citigroup has a market cap of roughly $145 billion.
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