A successful shareholder meeting last week is helping to put the superbank back on track, even if it’s not entirely obvious in the marketplace today.
Big four roundup
But before we get into that, let’s have quick look at where Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C)’s big-four peers are starting off a new week of trading:
Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) is down 0.16%, and also can’t quite make up its mind today.
Bucking the trend, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) is up by 0.05%.
Following the trend, Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) is down 0.11% on the day, though it too has been jumping around.
You like me, you really do
At last Wednesday’s annual meeting, Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) shareholders voted 90% in favor of an $11.25 million pay package for CEO Michael Corbat. Politicians of every stripe love to claim a mandate when they get anything much over 50% of the vote. 90%? Now that’s a mandate.
Corbat has shown himself to be a different kind of CEO than Vikram Pandit, who “resigned” his position last October after chairman Michael O’Neill engineered a coup against him. And shareholders obviously approve:
After an impressive performance on the 2013 stress tests, Corbat didn’t seek permission from the Federal Reserve to increase the bank’s dividend, though he could easily have gotten it. The bank needs to keep building its strength more than it needs to return money to shareholders. Corbat knows that, but could have chosen to curry favor with investors by increasing the dividend.
At the shareholder meeting itself, Corbat wouldn’t bow to investor pressure to wind down Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) Holdings any faster than it already is. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) Holdings is Citigroup’s “bad bank,” created in the wake of the financial crisis to hold toxic assets and non-core lines of business. Corbat told investors he would not “destroy our capital simply for the sake of speed.”
I think shareholders know a good thing when they see it. Corbat keeps making the right decisions, which is money in the bank for him, and money in the bank for shareholders — even if they do have to be more than a little patient.
And if the market is being indecisive today, and not rewarding good behavior, or just being indifferent to it, that’s the way it goes sometimes. The market is always on the move: up one day and down the next.
So don’t put too much stock on these short-term gyrations, Foolish readers. Keep an eye on the fundamentals of the companies you’re invested in and stay focused on the long term.
The article Why Citigroup Is Up and Down Today originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by John Grgurich.
Fool contributor John Grgurich owns shares of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Follow John’s dispatches from the bleeding heart of capitalism on Twitter @TMFGrgurich. The Motley Fool recommends Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
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