Citigroup (NYSE:C) Board of Directors Authorizes Stock Buyback Program

Citigroup (NYSE:C) declared that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, January 15th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $20.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to purchase up to 13.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on C. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $110.00 to $102.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Truist Financial initiated coverage on shares of Citigroup in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. They set a “buy” rating and a $85.00 price objective on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on shares of Citigroup from $82.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Barclays raised shares of Citigroup from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Citigroup has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $80.13.

Citigroup Stock Up 6.8 %

C stock opened at $78.48 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 0.96 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.55. Citigroup has a fifty-two week low of $50.51 and a fifty-two week high of $79.25. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $70.60 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.22. The stock has a market cap of $148.43 billion, a PE ratio of 22.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 1.43.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 15th. The company reported $1.34 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.22 by $0.12. The business had revenue of $19.58 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $19.51 billion. Citigroup had a net margin of 4.70% and a return on equity of 6.19%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.84 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Citigroup will post 5.86 EPS for the current year.

Citigroup Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 28th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.56 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $2.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.85%. Citigroup’s payout ratio is 64.93%.

About Citigroup

Citigroup Inc, a diversified financial service holding company, provides various financial product and services to consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions worldwide. It operates through five segments: Services, Markets, Banking, U.S. Personal Banking, and Wealth. The Services segment includes Treasury and Trade Solutions, which provides cash management, trade, and working capital solutions to multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public sector organizations; and Securities Services, such as cross-border support for clients, local market expertise, post-trade technologies, data solutions, and various securities services solutions.