Citigroup Inc. (C): Why It Is Booming Today

First-quarter numbers for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) are in, and given how good they are, investors are understandably happy, driving the superbank’s share price up 2.98% already on the day.

Tale of the tickers
But before we dig into the particulars, let’s have a quick look at where Citi’s peers and the markets are so far:

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) is up 0.82%.

Up 0.45%, JPMorgan Chase& Co.  (NYSE:JPM) has just edged out of the red, where the superbank began the day’s trading.

Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) has finally climbed out of the red, as well, where it began the trading day: It’s now up 0.32%.

So far, so bad in the markets, however, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.46%, the S&P 500 down 0.56%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.55%.

Foolish bottom line
There’s no mystery as to why Citi is beating the band today; the bank’s first-quarter results are impressive, and investor money is flowing in.

First-quarter net income rose 30%, to $3.8 billion, not significantly far off from JPMorgan’s Q1 results, which showed an increase in net income of 33%. This puts Citi’s earnings per share at $1.23, easily beating estimates.

Perhaps even more significantly for Citi, revenue actually rose in the first quarter: up 3% year over year. In comparison, JPMorgan’s revenue dropped 3.8% year over year for Q1. Even Wells had reduced first-quarter revenue, down 1.4% year over year.

A few other Citi bright spots to report:

Revenue rose 12% from the fourth quarter.

Net losses at Citi Holdings, the “bad bank” created after the financial crisis to hold the superbank’s bad assets, dropped to $794 million, or 21%.