Financial sector stocks have risen dramatically in the past seven months. Is the run-up about hype or value?
Since March, the Financial Select Sector ETF (XLF) has risen from $6.99 to $15.21 per share. The rise represents a 117 percent increase.
Dramatic increases such as this one are typically followed by pockets of profit-taking.
A series of earnings reports will come out in the next few weeks. The results of which will confirm or discount the rally.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) will be reporting third quarter earnings in the coming days.
Even with the recent rise, …read more

Time for another edition of Following The Fool’s “This Week’s 5 Smartest Stock Moves.” The list does not give recommendations, but it reviews highlights from the past week. I thought it would be interesting to see if any of the picks turned out to be good going forward.
Two weeks ago, Rick Munarriz listed six stocks and last week he listed four (he wrote about a possible Facebook IPO as his fifth choice). Below you will find how the picks panned out for the week of 9/18 – 9/25.
Intuit (INTU) – Price when reported by the Fool: $27.77. Closing price on 9/25: $27.65. One-week …read more

Have you ever invested in something and watched the value of your investment wither away?
If so, why didn’t you sell? Perhaps you suffered, or are suffering from a case of “get-evenitis.”
“Get-evenitis” is the layman’s term for loss aversion.
Loss aversion is a reluctance to sell investments after they have decreased in value. It may also be referred to as the breakeven effect.
Research shows that many individuals suffer from loss aversion. Individual investors are approximately 1.5 times* more likely to sell a stock that has risen as opposed to selling a stock that has fallen.
For example, suppose you bought 100 shares of Citigroup …read more

Today, Citigroup (Ticker: C) shocked Wall Street by reporting first quarter net income of $1.59 billion. With better than expected results, why did the shares close 9 percent?
Perhaps, because Citi’s owners didn’t really profit.
In situations like this it is good to know the basics of financial statements.
The income statement tracks a company’s revenues and expenses for a certain period of time. Net income is often referred to as “the bottom line” because it is the bottom line on a company’s income statement.
If revenues are greater than expenses, then the company has turned a profit and if revenues are less than expenses, then the …read more

This afternoon, shares of Citigroup (Ticker: C) traded as much as 17 percent higher after news broke that the company is selling Nikko Citigroup Ltd.
According to MarketWatch, Citigroup already had plans to sell Nikko Asset Management and Nikko Cordial Securities.
Nikko Cordial is the retail brokerage group. Nikko Citigroup is Japan’s investment banking unit.
According to Reuters, the deal for all three could reach $8 billion. We all know Citi could use the extra cash. The bank owes at least $45 billion in government loans.
The stock’s gains will be tested later this week when Citigroup reports first quarter earnings.
The news was originally reported by Kyodo News …read more

Wells Fargo (Ticker: WFC) shocked Wall Street by projecting a whopping $3 billion profit for the first quarter of this year.
The full earnings report is scheduled for April 22, but news of the projected profits sent bank stocks soaring.
Shares of Wells Fargo are trading over 27 percent higher.
Bank of America (Ticker: BAC) shares rose 31 percent while shares of Citigroup (Ticker: C) had a more moderate gain (relatively speaking) of 10 percent. 
Wells Fargo attributed some of the positive results to an increase in mortgage applications and its acquisition of Wachovia earlier this year.
According to the Associated Press, Wells Fargo has received $25 billion …read more

Today, shares of Citigroup (Ticker: C) dipped below one dollar per share for the first time ever.
This day will definitely go down in the Citi record books. After the past year, they’d probably like to burn those books!
About ten years ago, I had an internship at a brokerage firm. I remember people actually calling into the office to get stock quotes. Imagine that!
Anyway, I remember a client calling in to ask about Citigroup.  Citi’s shares were trading around $50 at the time. After the call, a few people around the office said that Citi was a “solid company” and an “old reliable.”
I couldn’t afford …read more

And then there were two…
Citigroup (Ticker: C), which I have pet-named the “Wal-Mart of the financials,” will split into two smaller companies, Citicorp and Citi Holdings. According to the Associated Press, Citicorp will host worldwide traditional banking activity and Citi Holdings will handle the bank’s “riskier assets and tougher-to-manage ventures.” 

Citigroup’s days of Tommy-esque operations have appeared to hit a road block after many speed pricey bumps:
May 2008: Citi announces plans to shed $400 billion in assets over the next two years.
June 2008: Investment bank “re-sizing” plan announced. Plan includes shedding 6,500 jobs.
August 2008: New York AG’s office announces SEC probe of Citigroup and his intent to …read more

Citigroup’s bailout deal was struck over a weekend in November. Just two months later, I thought this past weekend would reveal yet another big deal involving Citigroup. I may be a day or two off, but something is definitely cooking!

Sources told Bloomberg that Morgan Stanley (Ticker: MS) is negotiating with Citigroup (Ticker: C) to purchase a majority stake in Citi’s brokerage arm, Smith Barney.
According to the source, Morgan Stanley would pay cash for a 51 percent stake in a joint venture of the firms’ brokerage units. An AP source said the deal would lead Citi to a gain in the neighborhood of $5 billion after taxes. Morgan Stanley …read more