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Citi: A Sell at $3.00?

Citi is perhaps the worst run of the big banks and the only reason they are still in business is government handouts. For Citi to stay in existence they are going to require a lot more in the way of handouts. You may welll see the stock rise in the short term but I doubt that enough funds can be pumped into its coffers from the government for it to survive. The entire banking system cannot stand the strain of the potential losses but Citi is one of the top three in being over exposed.

Going long on C is definitely a lottery pick.

The Government's Pouring Money Into a Bottomless Citi Pit

Good show! This seems to be what most people miss in evaluating the current scene. The size of the debt already run up by Bush and his cronies and then piling on top of that the current TARP quick fixes which are only delaying the inevitable. A currency devaluation is coming. It is the only hope that the US has of ever being able to handle a debt that by the time Obama gets into office will be probably be about triple the debt from 8 years ago. I expect a very long brutal recession throughout America. I hope that Obama can get this turned around and moving in the right direction but it is not going to be by handing out money to the people who created the problem in the first place.

There needs to be a total house cleaning with bureaucrats and "financial experts" alike being brought to task on their creation.

My only disagreement to the above comments are per the 30 June 08 OCC & BIS statements that Citibank NA held $37.1 trillion in derivative bets and 98.3% of these bets were under no regulation but were done with their trading partners in over the counter exchanges. The problem with this is that when one partner goes down it begins a chain reaction because they are simply bets that suddenly have no one to pay out. Lehman went under with only $7.1 trillion in these bets. Citi is following the course of the US government and selling its soul (shareholders) for a mess of pottage.

Fast Money Recap - Who Cares about the Citi Rally? (11/24/08)

$20B does nothing for Citi except make them appear to be not totally insolvent. The hole they have is too big unless the taxpayer is willing to keep another corrupt organization in business. It must be nice to be a friend of Paulsens.

Citigroup: The End Draws Near

The basic data on C:
It has $2 trillion in assets. It holds 185 million credit cards accounts which were piling up bad debts PRIOR to the global financial crisis (bad debts were up about 67%) and outstanding accounts over 90 days were skyrocketing. Back in August it was suffering from mortgage defaults and it still has at least another $200 billion in mortgages on their books and who knows how many of those will be in default. However, this is the minor part of the problem. Per the US Comptroller of the Currency on 30 June 08 Citibank NA (the primary banking unit of C) held $37.1 trillion in derivative bets.

These bailouts only make it appear that there is some sort of hope but the major financial institutions in the US are badly in debt and teetering on collapse. Don't be surprised to see institutional investors fleeing C if they have not done so already.

On Nov 21 03:36 PM jack dee wrote:

> would you be short perhaps?