Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) is scheduled to reveal its third-quarter results early on Friday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $1.65 in earnings per share (EPS) and $18.46 billion in revenue. In the same period from last year, the financial giant said it had EPS of $1.42 and $18.17 billion in revenue.
In a recent report from Oppenheimer, the firm raised its target to $95 from $92 while reiterating its Outperform rating.
According to the report, capital levels are high, delinquencies are low and the banks are on better planes than they have ever been. All this is while many analysts are calling for slow loan growth, but the analyst thinks that is actually what you want to see.
Loan growth is still above the nominal GDP growth in the country, and Oppenheimer senior analyst Chris Kotowski sees the loan base being well balanced in all segments. One issue that would worry Oppenheimer’s upside is if loan growth were to heat up into the double-digits for a period, which was referred to as a “precursor to asset quality regrets.”
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Citi’s target of $95 in Oppenheimer’s call is short of the $101 street-high analyst price target. That said, this call is also above the more recent price targets that have been noted by analysts in the past few weeks.
Overall, Citigroup has underperformed the broad markets, with its stock down 7% in the past 52 weeks. In just 2018 alone, the stock is down 6%.
A few other analysts weighed in on the stock:
- Deutsche Bank has a Buy rating with an $82 price target.
- Wolfe Research has an Outperform rating.
- Wells Fargo has a Buy rating with a $100 target price.
- Goldman Sachs has a Neutral rating and a $78 price target.
- BMO Capital Markets has a Market Perform rating and an $85 target.
Shares of Citigroup were last seen at $69.77, with a consensus analyst price target of $85.02 and a 52-week trading range of $64.38 to $80.70.
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