However, over the year the bank has earned more money than Deutsche Bank is worth on the stock market.
Although the Cititbank had warned in December before too great expectations and declared that they would probably easily miss their own goals. But the surplus now presented exceeds the expectations of analysts significantly.
Earnings per share increased 26 percent to $ 1.61 in the fourth quarter. Not only the total profit of $ 4.3 billion, but also the repurchase of eight percent of the issued shares contributed to this.
Lowered costs
In the same period last year, the Institute had retracted a loss of $ 18.9 billion because of one-off charges from the US tax reform. Adjusted for one-off effects, earnings rose 14 percent to $ 4.22 billion this time, driven by lower costs and lower taxes. The revenue has increased by only one percent to $ 72.9 billion.
More course information about Citigroup
Throughout 2018, the bank made a surplus of $ 18 billion, after a loss of $ 6.6 billion a year ago. The now reported annual profit is higher than the rating of the entire Deutsche Bank.
Start of the reporting season
In the fourth quarter, returns were even down two percent to $ 17.12 billion due to weak bond activity. This is a bit less than experts had expected, mainly due to the weak bond business.
Citigroup is the first of the six major US banks to come up with their numbers this week. Tomorrow, Tuesday, investment bank JPMorgan and San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo will follow.
In pre-trade, investors are initially disappointed with the numbers. Last year, Citigroup’s share slumped by almost 40 percent, but was able to rebound strongly.
