NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Citigroup posted second-quarter earnings of $2.2 billion Monday, marking its third straight quarterly profit and beating Wall Street expectations, as the bank continued to trim its loan loss reserves thanks to improving credit trends.
Earnings for the banking giant came in at 7 cents per share, compared to a loss of 27 cents per share during the period a year ago.
Last month, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) said Discover Financial Services (DFS, Fortune 500) was buying the troubled Student Loan Corporation business, in which Citi owns a big stake. Excluding charges from that sale, the New York-based bank earned $2.6 billion, or 8 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn 6 cents for the quarter.
The provision for credit losses, the funds set aside for the allowance of bad loans, was reduced to $5.9 billion, the lowest since the second quarter of 2007, prior to the onset of the financial crisis. That's a decrease of 11% from the previous quarter.
Citigroup' is the second big bank in the past week to report better-than expected results. JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), which raked in $4.4 billion last quarter, reported last week.
The rest of the banking sector is slated to deliver results this week, including Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500).
Shares of Citi were up more than 2% in pre-market trading. But all big bank stocks have been hit hard on the past week due to concerns about the foreclosure scandal. To top of page
No comments:
Post a Comment