Citigroup (C) Beats Easily, Empire State Swings To Positive

Monday, July 15, 2019

The opening salvo on busy season for Q2 earnings reports was supplied by Citigroup (NYSE:C) , which outperformed expectations on both top and bottom lines during today’s pre-market hours. Earnings of $1.95 per share easily beat the $1.80 expected and the $1.62 in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $18.758 billion topped the $18.31 billion in the Zacks consensus.

Beating earnings estimates is nothing new for Citi — it’s last negative quarterly surprise was way back in Q4 2014. Loans were up 3% in the quarter while deposits rose 5%, though credit costs were up 16%. Investment booking revenues were down 10% year over year.

So far, so good in Q2 earnings season. Expectations have been for a slow down this quarter, as you can see in Zacks Director of Research Sheraz Mian’s latest Earnings Preview here.

We look forward to other big banks reporting this week: JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:C) will post results tomorrow morning, while we’ll hear from Bank of America (NYSE:C) Wednesday, and so on. No fewer than 57 S&P 500 companies will have been heard from this week, following two dozen or so companies that have already reported quarterly results.

After the closing bell today, we look forward to earnings results from trucking and transportation firm J.B. Hunt (NASDAQ:JBHT) and Midwest regional bank Wintrust (NYSE:C) . In short, this is a big week for getting a rough illustration what we can expect from quarterly performance overall.

The Empire State survey for July surprised to the upside this morning, posting +4.3 on the headline — above the 1.0 expected and the -8.6 disappointment reported in June. This is a regional manufacturing index that includes the largest city in the U.S., New York. Count this as another piece of incremental good news for the economy.

Mark Vickery
Senior Editor

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