Markets
News
Analysis
User
24/7
Economic Calendar
Education
Data
- Names
- Latest
- Prev
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
A:--
F: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
A:--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
--
F: --
P: --
No matching data
Latest Views
Latest Views
Trending Topics
To quickly learn market dynamics and follow market focuses in 15 min.
In the world of mankind, there will not be a statement without any position, nor a remark without any purpose.
Inflation, exchange rates, and the economy shape the policy decisions of central banks; the attitudes and words of central bank officials also influence the actions of market traders.
Money makes the world go round and currency is a permanent commodity. The forex market is full of surprises and expectations.
Top Columnists
Enjoy exciting activities, right here at FastBull.
The latest breaking news and the global financial events.
I have 5 years of experience in financial analysis, especially in aspects of macro developments and medium and long-term trend judgment. My focus is maily on the developments of the Middle East, emerging markets, coal, wheat and other agricultural products.
BeingTrader chief Trading Coach & Speaker, 8+ years of experience in the forex market trading mainly XAUUSD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, and Crude Oil. A confident trader and analyst who aims to explore various opportunities and guide investors in the market. As an analyst I am looking to enhance the trader’s experience by supporting them with sufficient data and signals.
Latest Update
Risk Warning on Trading HK Stocks
Despite Hong Kong's robust legal and regulatory framework, its stock market still faces unique risks and challenges, such as currency fluctuations due to the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar and the impact of mainland China's policy changes and economic conditions on Hong Kong stocks.
HK Stock Trading Fees and Taxation
Trading costs in the Hong Kong stock market include transaction fees, stamp duty, settlement charges, and currency conversion fees for foreign investors. Additionally, taxes may apply based on local regulations.
HK Non-Essential Consumer Goods Industry
The Hong Kong stock market encompasses non-essential consumption sectors like automotive, education, tourism, catering, and apparel. Of the 643 listed companies, 35% are mainland Chinese, making up 65% of the total market capitalization. Thus, it's heavily influenced by the Chinese economy.
HK Real Estate Industry
In recent years, the real estate and construction sector's share in the Hong Kong stock index has notably decreased. Nevertheless, as of 2022, it retains around 10% market share, covering real estate development, construction engineering, investment, and property management.
Hongkong, China
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Dubai, UAE
Lagos, Nigeria
Cairo, Egypt
White Label
Data API
Web Plug-ins
Affiliate Program
View All
No data
Not Logged In
Log in to access more features
FastBull Membership
Not yet
Purchase
Log In
Sign Up
Hongkong, China
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Dubai, UAE
Lagos, Nigeria
Cairo, Egypt
White Label
Data API
Web Plug-ins
Affiliate Program
Stocks held by consumer-lending firms fell last week after Wall Street executives warned of lower-income borrowers’ struggling to pay bills.
What Happened: Banking executives at a recent Barclays conference in New York noted how delinquencies are on the rise, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The average interest rate on a credit card as of May was 21.51%, up from around 15% in 2019, Federal Reserve data shows.
About 9.1% of credit card balances turned delinquent over the past 12 months to mark the highest rate in over a decade, according to an August report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
"What that tells you is if people do get behind on their payments in this environment, it's tougher to get out of them," TD Cowen analyst Moshe Orenbuch said.
Why It Matters: Bread Financial, a credit card company that serves lower-income borrowers, said it expects higher charge-off rates — balances that banks write off as a result of lack of payments — this year.
Late payments and charge-offs on auto loans were higher than expected in July and August as borrowers grapple with the cost of living and a worsening labor market, Ally Financial Inc. CFO Russ Hutchinson said.
This worried investors because car payments are usually the last bills to go delinquent because cars are needed for transportation.
The average interest rate on a 60-month loan for a new car was 8.2% as of May, according to Fed data, up from 5.3% in 2019.
Over the past year, roughly 8% of auto loans turned delinquent, according to the New York Fed, the highest rate in over a decade.
Price Action: Consumer-lending companies trended upward into Tuesday’s early afternoon trading.
Car-loan providers also rose on Tuesday.
Read Now:
Image: Shutterstock
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Citigroup Inc.'s C stock dropped 5.9% in the past month compared with a 1.8% decline in the industry and against a rise of 0.5% in the S&P 500 index, leaving investors wondering whether to take the benefit of the price decline or to wait for a better entry point.
When compared with its competitors in the banking space, C's performance is weaker. Wells Fargo & Company WFC shares have declined 4.7%, while Bank of America BAC stock fell 0.8% over the same period.
1-Month Price Performance
Citigroup has been facing heightened regulatory scrutiny lately. Last month, it made the headlines for breaching the Federal Reserve’s Regulation W, which limits intercompany transactions. Those breaches led to discrepancies in its internal liquidity reporting. This was reported by Reuters, citing an internal company document.
This violation is not a single incident that reflects systemic inadequacies in Citigroup's regulatory compliance practices. In July, the U.S. bank regulators penalized the company with a $136-million fine for failing to make adequate progress in fixing data management issues.
Moreover, the company is witnessing a rise in credit losses. At a recently-concluded Barclays conference, Citigroup’s CFO, Mark Mason, stated that Citigroup’s Credit losses are rising as U.S. consumers shift spending to basic needs and away from purchases that aren’t vital. The company is witnessing a pickup in revolving credit while payment rates have started to come down a bit.
For 2024, net credit losses are anticipated in the band of 3.5-4% in the company’s branded cards business and 5.75-6.25% in retail services. The cost of credit is expected to be $2.7 billion.
These ongoing challenges are significant obstacles for the bank in the near term.
Nonetheless, Citigroup's long-term prospects look encouraging as it attempts to transform and streamline its operations to boost its stock price.
Citigroup's Long-Term Prospects Remain Bright
Organizational Overhaul to Reduce Costs: The company is carrying out a comprehensive overhaul to improve its performance, cut costs and simplify businesses.
The company completed its organizational simplification in first-quarter 2024, resulting in a simpler management structure and improved accountability. The new operating model consists of five reportable segments and a new financial reporting structure.
The reorganization trimmed management layers and now operates under eight layers rather than 13. As part of the turnaround, Citigroup aims to shrink its workforce by 20,000 over the next two years. With fewer layers, increased spans of control and significantly reduced bureaucracy and unnecessary complexity, the company will be able to operate more efficiently.
Focus on Core Operation: The company has been pursuing growth in core businesses by streamlining international operations. This June, it sold its China-based onshore consumer wealth portfolio to HSBC China. The bank winded down its U.K. retail banking business and plans to expand personal banking and wealth management businesses in the region.
The previously announced wind-down of the company’s consumer banking businesses in Korea and overall presence in Russia are in progress. C is preparing for a planned IPO of its consumer, small business and middle-market banking operations in Mexico. It restarted the sales process for the consumer banking business in Poland. In July, the company announced its plan to discontinue operations in Haiti.
Since announcing its intention to exit consumer banking businesses across 14 markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Mexico as part of its strategic refresh, the company exited from Australia, Bahrain, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Such exits will free up capital and help it pursue investments in wealth management operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE and London to stoke fee income growth.
With these initiatives, the company projects revenues to register a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4-5% by 2026-end.
Scaled-Back Capital Requirements Plan: The Federal Reserve Board’s vice-chair of supervision, Michael Barr, on Sep. 10, outlined proposed Basel regulations. If approved, it would roughly halve the additional capital that big banks would need to maintain to safeguard them in the event of financial crisis. The new plan requires banks to hold 9% of additional capital instead of the 19% proposed in the initial plan.
The modifications above are a part of the global regulatory framework known as the Basel III endgame, which aims to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 financial crisis. The changes relate to the capital surcharge for global systemically important banks (G-SIBs), including C, WFC and BAC.
The toned-down capital requirements, if approved, will be beneficial for Citigroup as the company can allocate the remaining amount to other initiatives or to increase lending activities. This will lead to increased profitability.
Fed Rate Cut Decision: The Federal Reserve is set to start cutting interest rates this week for the first time since March 2020. The rate cut signal is a positive development for banks, including Citigroup, which has been reeling under increasing funding cost pressure. While higher rates have led to a significant jump in banks’ net interest income (NII), the same increased funding costs, which dented margins.
Citigroup's NII and net interest margin (NIM) have been subdued by the increased funding costs as the high-interest rate environment puts pressure on it. In the first half of 2024, C’s NII dropped by 1%. For 2024, management projects NII (excluding Markets) to be modestly down compared with 2023 levels.
NIM declined to 2.41% in the second quarter compared to 2.48% in the year-ago quarter. As interest rates come down, it will be a boon and support NIM expansion.
Hence, the rate cut is expected to benefit the company’s financials in the upcoming period.
Sales Estimates
EPS Estimates
As the company is expected to witness an increase in credit losses in the near term, its earnings will be under pressure. Hence, analysts moved their earnings estimates lower over the past month for 2024. Nonetheless, considering its bright long-term prospects, analysts have kept 2025 estimates unchanged.
Estimate Revision Trend
What Should Investors Do Now – Buy C Stock or Wait?
Citigroup stock appears inexpensive relative to the industry. The company is currently trading at the 12-month trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) F12M ratio of 8.65, below the industry’s 11.08.
P/E F12M
Technical indicators are not supportive of Citigroup. The stock currently trades below its 50-day moving average. This underperformance could indicate a lack of strong momentum in the near term, suggesting a cautious outlook.
50-Day Moving Average
In spite of the solid growth potential that Citigroup offers over the long run and its favorable valuation, it is not advisable to add this stock to one’s portfolio right now. Prospective investors should keep an eye on the central bank’s future course of action and rising credit losses, and analyze the impact of these on the company’s financials before making any investment decision. Those who already own the C stock in their portfolio can retain it because it is less likely to disappoint over the long term, given strong fundamentals.
Currently, Citigroup carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Zacks Investment Research
Bank of America Corporation shares are trading higher on Tuesday. The bank appointed two executives to spearhead a new initiative aimed at integrating its investment banking and wealth management divisions.
The bank targets increased asset growth and deal opportunities, as reported Bloomberg.
Jim Rourke and Michael Liu have been appointed to lead the newly named Private Client Partnership Development.
Read: Bank Of America Makes Largest-Ever Investments In Carbon Capture, Bets $205M On A Cleaner Planet
Brendan Hanley and Sam Kumar, co-heads of emerging growth and regional coverage, stated that Rourke and Liu will focus on sell-side M&A opportunities to "increase the quality of actionable mandates and growth of managed assets,".
This month, the bank announced a bold wage hike, driving its minimum hourly rate to $24 and edging closer to a $25 goal by 2025.
This increase will raise the minimum annual salary for full-time U.S. employees to almost $50,000 and applies to all full-time and part-time hourly roles.
Investors can gain access to the stock via First Trust Nasdaq Bank ETF and Invesco KBW Bank ETF .
Price Action: BAC shares are up 0.30% at $39.22 premarket at the last check Tuesday.
Read Next:
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Financial stocks were edging higher premarket Tuesday as the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund advanced by 0.2% recently.
The Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares was up 0.6% and its bearish counterpart Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares was 0.5% lower.
Upstart Holdings shares were up more than 1% after the company priced a private placement to eligible purchasers of $375 million of 2% convertible senior notes due 2029.
TPG's investor group TPG Angelo Gordon and other partners, including Stadium Capital said they have agreed to acquire a Dutch residential portfolio from European Residential REIT for about 695 million euros ($773.8 million). TPG shares were up 0.7% pre-bell.
Bank of America said it will redeem the $1.75 billion principal amount outstanding of 3.093% fixed/floating rate senior notes due October 2025 on Oct. 1. Bank of America shares advanced by 0.5% premarket.
White Label
Data API
Web Plug-ins
Poster Maker
Affiliate Program
The risk of loss in trading financial instruments such as stocks, FX, commodities, futures, bonds, ETFs and crypto can be substantial. You may sustain a total loss of the funds that you deposit with your broker. Therefore, you should carefully consider whether such trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances and financial resources.
No decision to invest should be made without thoroughly conducting due diligence by yourself or consulting with your financial advisors. Our web content might not suit you since we don't know your financial conditions and investment needs. Our financial information might have latency or contain inaccuracy, so you should be fully responsible for any of your trading and investment decisions. The company will not be responsible for your capital loss.
Without getting permission from the website, you are not allowed to copy the website's graphics, texts, or trademarks. Intellectual property rights in the content or data incorporated into this website belong to its providers and exchange merchants.