What’s in the Pipeline for Citigroup?

citigroup

Citigroup Inc. (C: NYSE) is currently trading at $45.07 per share, up 0.54% or $0.24. The recommendation summary for this week according to Thomson/First Call analysts is 1.9 on a rating scale of 1.0 (Strong buy) to 5.0 (Strong sell). The stock has a high target price of $70 per share and a low target price of $44 per share. Based on the current trading range, it is priced just above its low price target. The upgrades and downgrades history for the stock in 2016 has been largely negative, as can be seen by the previous 3 ratings reports by research firms:

  • On 7 January 2016, Portales Partners upgraded the stock from an underperform to a sector perform
  • On 1 March 2016, Atlantic Equities downgraded the stock from an overweight rating to a neutral rating
  • On 18 April 2016, Keefe Bruyette downgraded the stock from an outperform to a market perform rating
  • News from Citigroup Inc.

  • Citigroup Inc. has been embroiled in a currency trading scandal as several former employees in the FX arena have claimed that their actions which led to the dismissals were actually sanctioned by Citigroup Inc. Regulatory authorities around the world have been probing the actions of major banking enterprises, notably their forex departments, with respect to currency manipulation activity. Citigroup was one such financial enterprise that has come under scrutiny by regulators. The company has been actively dismissing employees whom it considers having violated company policy and regulatory standards.
  • However, several traders in Singapore, London, Tokyo and elsewhere have collectively claimed that they were simply following company protocol. Citigroup on the other hand has taken the position that these forex traders have breached company conduct policies. Owing to the currency trading manipulation charges, global banks have had to pay approximately $10 billion in fines. For its part, Citigroup Inc. maintains that the actions of rogue traders amount to collusion in an attempt to defraud traders by improper conduct in the spot forex market. Policies vary from one regulatory authority to another, and Japan for example does not require the submission for benchmarks such as WM/Reuters rates.