Citigroup Inc (C): What You Missed

An hour into the trading week, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) is down 0.05%, after falling 0.33% in weekend trading: this after a five-day run that saw shares in the superbank rise 3.44%. With two bits of good news that hit the wires over the last three days, a down day for Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) isn’t what I expected to see.

Tale of the tickers
But before we dive into that, here’s a quick glance at where Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C)’s peers and the markets are starting out the week’s first day of trading:

• Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) is up 0.08%.
• JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is down 0.59%.
• And shares in Wells Fargo are down 0.24%.

The markets are all down, with the broader S&P 500 down 0.20% already, the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.27%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.10%.

One and one don’t always make two
On Friday, Traders Magazine reported that Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) edged out Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) as the world’s top foreign-exchange trading operation. Why is this good news for Citi? Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) only beat Citi by the narrowest of margins: 0.28%. This is the closest the two-bank race has been since 2004.

In other news, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) CEO Michael Corbat told Bloomberg Television in an interview on Saturday that the U.S. economy won’t completely make the turn to a full recovery until companies start spending. “We continue to see corporations defer hiring, we continue to see them deferring capital expenditure. Until we really see the other side — that corporate side — step in, I don’t think we can look and say that we’ve really got a full U.S. recovery.”

This call to action for corporations to start spending was a breath of fresh air to me. It’s not often you hear CEOs criticizing corporate America, and it’s yet another sign to me that Corbat has his finger on the pulse of his company, the economy, and his own business philosophy. And he’s not afraid to speak his mind plainly on important matters. It’s statements like this that should make investors feel good about who’s on top at Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C).