Share Repurchase Plan Initiated by Citigroup (NYSE:C) Board of Directors

Citigroup (NYSE:C) announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, January 15th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $20.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the company to buy up to 13.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Citigroup Price Performance

Citigroup stock traded up $4.98 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $78.48. 44,885,577 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 18,525,404. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $70.60 and a 200-day moving average price of $65.22. The stock has a market cap of $148.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 1.43. Citigroup has a one year low of $50.51 and a one year high of $79.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.55, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a current ratio of 0.96.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 15th. The company reported $1.34 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.22 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $19.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $19.51 billion. Citigroup had a net margin of 4.70% and a return on equity of 6.19%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 12.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.84 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that Citigroup will post 5.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Citigroup Announces Dividend

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

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on C. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Citigroup from $90.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on shares of Citigroup from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Citigroup from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Barclays raised Citigroup from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Oppenheimer dropped their price objective on Citigroup from $110.00 to $102.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $80.13.

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.