Jim Cramer on Citigroup Earnings, PG&E Drama and China

May 12, 2023

in Trade Tube

Reading Time: 2 mins read

Time to kick off the week. Here’s what’s on Jim Cramer’s mind on Monday, Jan. 14.

Citibank’s Earnings
TheStreet’s Bradley Keoun broke down Citigroup’s earnings.

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Net income was $4.3 billion, the New York-based bank said Monday in a statement. Earnings per share were $1.64, while adjusted profit of $1.61 beat the average analyst estimate of $1.55 in a FactSet survey. The results were difficult to compare with those in the fourth quarter of 2018, when Citigroup booked a net loss of $18.9 billion because of a one-time charge related to the tax law passed in late 2017.
Revenue in the fixed-income division, which includes bond trading as well as foreign exchange and commodities, tumbled by 21% to $1.94 billion. The results were affected not only by the volatile markets but also by the underperformance of corporate bonds and other credit-sensitive securities.

PG&E’s Planning to Announce Bankruptcy
TheStreet’s Joseph Woelfel and Anne Stanley have been following the utility company as the drama has unfolded.

In a statement, the California utility company said it intends to file petitions to reorganize under Chapter 11 on or about Jan. 29.

“PG&E expects that the Chapter 11 process will, among other things, support the orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of its potential liabilities resulting from the 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires, and will assure the company has access to the capital and resources it needs to continue to provide safe service to customers,” the company said.

PG&E said it doesn’t “expect any impact to electric or natural gas service for its customers as a result of the Chapter 11 process.”

On Sunday, PG&E said its CEO had stepped down, and reports said the utility company could be notifying its 20,000 employees as early as Monday that it was headed toward bankruptcy.

Cramer’s Take on China
In his Real Money column Monday morning, Cramer gave his thoughts on China.

“It is time to challenge China, not so much on world hegemony, but just on plain old-fashioned fairness,” Cramer wrote. “Why are so many willing to say “enough already?” I think it’s because China has never been more vulnerable and we have rarely been as strong as we are right now.”

“Given the timing — Sunday night we learned that China’s exports were down 4.4% in December while imports were off 7.6%, the worst since 2016, while the trade surplus with the U.S. hit a record in 2018 — I think this harsher-than-expected-view may be more realistic than most investors think,” he continued.

Cramer explains why he feels that it’s–as he put it–“now or never” with China.

Citigroup is a holding in Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells C? Learn more now and join Cramer’s members only call Thursday, Jan. 14.

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