Oppenheimer Maintains Outperform on Citigroup After Weak Earnings, Raises PT

Oppenheimer has published a research report on Citigroup

and has raised the price target from $45 to $47 after the company's weaker-than-expected earnings. In the report, Oppenheimer writes, "While Citi's 4Q11 results were significantly weaker than we expected, we remain convinced that the company is on the mend and that the stock is way too cheap at 58% of tangible book. The bottom line came in at $0.38 per share vs our $0.75, and reasonably reflects the operating fundamentals, as there were $1.6B of "special" items which were mostly offset by $1.5B in reserve releases. One could put the "core" number at $0.41, but that is probably putting too fine a point on it. The essence is that the wholesale Securities & Banking business lost $0.2B for the quarter and everything else was pretty flat with the prior quarter." Oppenheimer maintains its Outperform rating on Citigroup, which closed yesterday at $28.22.