Citigroup kicked off calendar fourth-quarter earnings season on Monday by reporting stronger-than-expected earnings, but fixed-income trading suffered after a volatile fourth quarter.
Citigroup reported $1.61 in profit per share, besting Wall Street expectations of $1.55 per share. However, its fixed-income trading division took a 21 percent hit.
“A volatile fourth quarter impacted some of our market-sensitive businesses, particularly fixed income,” said CEO Michael Corbat.
Nonetheless, Citigroup Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach painted a positive picture of the economy at large.
“The real economy is doing well,” said Gerspach. “Then you’ve got what I’ll call the financial economy…I think there’s a good deal of concern around the world as to how do we exit this period of quantitative easing.”
“What remains to be seen is whether the financial economy has an impact on the real economy in 2019,” Gerspach added.
Shares of Citigroup jumped as much as 4 percent on Monday.