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Citi did the thing Wall Street wanted
Citigroup came in with a Q1 beat that gave the analyst crowd something to work with. The bank posted $3.06 per share on $24.633 billion in sales, topping expectations and nudging the stock up about 1.3% to $131.29.
The part investors actually zoom in on
CEO Jane Fraser said Citi is now in the final phase of its divestitures, with most of the transformation work nearing the finish line. That’s banker-speak for: the cleanup project is getting less messy, and the market tends to like it when big restructuring stories start looking less like a hobby and more like a completed renovation.
Buybacks are still doing heavy lifting
Citi also said it repurchased $6.3 billion of stock during the quarter. It reiterated its goal of 10% to 11% return on tangible common equity for the year and kept its 2026 outlook intact, including an expectation that net interest income excluding markets will rise 5% to 6%.
There was one small buzzkill: Citi lifted its forecast for branded cards net credit losses to 4.0% to 4.5%. In other words, some consumer credit stress is still lurking in the background.
Analysts: “Cool earnings, now let’s revise the spreadsheet”
A bunch of firms responded by raising price targets:
- Truist kept Buy and lifted its target from $133 to $139
- Barclays stayed Overweight and moved from $146 to $154
- Wells Fargo kept Overweight and went from $150 to $160
- Evercore ISI held In-Line and boosted its target from $115 to $139
- Oppenheimer kept Outperform and raised its target from $132 to $144
- KBW kept Outperform and raised its target from $131 to $140
Big picture: Citi’s story is still part turnaround, part capital-return machine. If management keeps shrinking the messy bits while buybacks keep flowing, the bulls get to keep making the “this is finally working” argument a little longer.