Citigroup Analyst Roundup Following Q4 Earnings

Citigroup Inc C posted a drop in Q4 earnings Thursday and shares were down by nearly 9 percent since last Friday.

Friday morning the stock traded at $47.19, down 0.08 percent from Thursday's close as analyst commented on the company’s earnings report.

Below are highlights from analysts along with current ratings and price targets.

Credit Suisse - Neutral, $60 price target

"Citigroup reported 4Q14 EPS of $0.06 which compares to Consensus of $0.09 and CS Research of $0.10.” Highlights included “further progress on strategic initiatives, use of DTA/strong CET 1 ratio, stable/favorable credit quality.” Lowlights included how “capital markets took [a] toll; trading revenues—both FICC (credit, in particular) and equities—were down 30 percent+ qtr/qtr. Litigation and repositioning charges were to be expected; our estimates rely on delivery of savings related to the latter.”

Barclays - Overweight, $65 price target

“While market-related revenues disappointed, C continued to exhibit several positive trends including steady core loan growth, a relatively stable net interest margin; sound asset quality, DTA utilization, Citi Holdings downsizing, and further streamlining initiatives. While last quarter C unveiled strategic actions in Consumer Banking, this quarter it announced actions within its Institutional Client Group, with plans to exit several non-core businesses. Furthermore, despite disappointing results in 2014, it seemed confident in its 2015 outlook including higher revenues, lower expanses and a ROA over 0.90 percent. We believe achieving these objects, coupled with it getting a solid CCAR submission approved, would get the shares over tangible book.”

Oppenheimer - Outperform, $67 price target

“We think in any case that the shares are undervalued at 83 percent of TBV and expect some significant ($6B +/-) buyback authorization after this year's CCAR process and believe the company's restructuring efforts will bear more fruit, as it seems to us that Citi is indeed slimming down to its most profitable core. EPS of $0.06 were in line with guidance that they would be nominally profitable after $3.5B of charges. We would put 4Q14 core earnings at ~$1.00, which is about $0.25 short of where we would have guessed three months ago. Still, given that it was a "kitchen sink" quarter, we would take this in stride.”

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods - Market Perform, $54 price target

“We would characterize C’s quarter as challenging given the headwinds that lower trading revenues produced. Citi management believes that the company has put much of the legal risk behind and should produce decent operating results in 2015. We believe that C continues to move in a better direction, but emerging market risks, lack of traction in U.S. Card growth, and capital deployment risks continue to keep us on the sidelines for now.”

Jefferies - Hold, $56 price target

"We tweak our '15/'16 EPS ests. lower to $5.25/$5.65 (from $5.35/$5.75, respectively). Revisions are largely driven by lower trading and slightly higher expenses. Despite EPS revisions, we still see a path to a mid-50's Citicorp efficiency ratio and an ROA in the ballpark of 90bp for FY15. We expect Street EPS ests. could reset lower in the near-term, but shares should be somewhat supported trading at 76 percent of our year-end '15 TBV per share estimate of $62.”