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Citigroup (C) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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Citigroup (C - Free Report) closed at $47.57 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.72% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.16%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.01%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.02%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the U.S. bank had gained 2.99% over the past month. This has lagged the Finance sector's gain of 3.36% and outpaced the S&P 500's gain of 1.83% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from Citigroup as it approaches its next earnings report date. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.27, down 13.01% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $17.89 billion, up 5.11% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $7.10 per share and revenue of $75.16 billion. These totals would mark changes of -29.98% and +5.89%, respectively, from last year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Citigroup. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.3% lower. Citigroup is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, Citigroup currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.65. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 10.36.

We can also see that C currently has a PEG ratio of 0.69. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Banks - Major Regional industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.29 as of yesterday's close.

The Banks - Major Regional industry is part of the Finance sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 148, putting it in the bottom 42% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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