Several Hedge Funds Cut Citigroup $C in Third Quarter

Citigroup (C) lost -38.47% in the third quarter, going from $41.62 a share on June 30 to just $25.61 a share on September 30, and it shows by the number of hedge fund managers that sold out of the company during the third quarter.

Who Sold Citigroup in the Third Quarter?

John Paulson’s Paulson & Co cut its stake in Citigroup during the third quarter. So, did Steve Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital, Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz‘s Lansdowne Partners, David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management, Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital, Jim Chanos’ Kynikos Associates and Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Management.

Deciding to Sell Citigroup

In fairness, it seems they made the right decision. Since then, even with October’s rally and the optimism that seems to have seeped into the market at large, Citigroup is still trading at just $26.83. Compared to competitors like Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup’s outlook appears even more dismal. Since the end of the third quarter, Citigroup has returned 9.41% while BAC has returned 0.16%  and Citigroup may carry a slightly higher analyst recommendation (2.2 on a 5 point scale where 1 means buy) than rival BAC (it has a mean recommendation of 2.4) but that is an average recommendation. Of 25 analysts, 3 recommend Citigroup as underperform or sell compared to BAC, which had just 1 of 32 analysts recommend underpeform and none recommend selling the stock. BAC has greater revenue ($75.36B to C’s $65.78B) in spite of having the smaller market cap  – BAC has a market cap of just $59.08B compared to Citigroup’s $78.35B. BAC also has higher 5-year growth estimates (11.75% to C’s 11.66%).