With the help of the US Government, Citi stumbles on! Having finally finished reading their Q1 earnings announcement, I'm slightly shaken. OK, I got the timing on their demise wrong...they're stills tumbling on. Yet I remain convinced that they will need yet another helping of aid (unless they get Lehmaned).
Anyway, when you take out some of the tricks that Vikram and his chums in their plush (newly refurbished!) executive office, it starts to get scary. From that $1.6Bln headline "profit", I've so far taken out nearly $1.1Bln, mostly one-off gains and rather flagrant accounting tricks. Considering the decimation of some of their opponents, the profit suddenly looks thin. Also, those credit loss prediction levels seem woefully low.
Citi is running on (government funded) fumes, so watch the upcoming quarters with interest (the academic type...you don't get much interest from a Citi deposit these days!).
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