Analyst Update: American Express, Citigroup, Finisar

Analysts are weighing in today on blue chip American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), financial firm Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), and optical components specialist Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ:FNSR). Here's a quick look at today's brokerage notes on AXP, C, and FNSR.

• This morning, Susquehanna slashed its price target on AXP to $99 from $107 while underscoring a "positive" rating, sending the shares down 0.6% to $80.69. Year-to-date, American Express Company is down 13.3%. Surprisingly, calls are a popular choice in the stock's options pits. Drilling down, AXP's 50-day International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) call/put volume ratio of 1.85 stands just 3 percentage points away from the highest such reading taken over the past year.


• Last night, it was announced that C passed the Fed's latest round of stress tests, joining 30 other major U.S. banks in exceeding all of the capital requirements. In response, KBW upgraded C to "outperform" from "market perform," and raised its price target on the security by $7 to $61. Today, amid weakness in U.S. stocks, the shares are down 0.6% to $53.25, widening their year-to-date loss to 1.6%. Despite the stock's technical woes, call activity is prominent in the options pits, as Citigroup Inc's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.71 sits in the 13th percentile of its annual range. Simply stated, call open interest outweighs put open interest among options that expire in three months or less, and the current skew toward calls is stronger than usual.


• FNSR reported its fiscal third-quarter earnings last night, revealing profit and revenue figures that were in line with expectations while upwardly revising its forecast for the current quarter. Reacting were no fewer than six brokerage firms, which all increased their price targets on the equity. The most ambitious hikes came from Raymond James and B. Riley, which raised their price targets to $25 and $25.50, respectively. Today, the shares are up 8.5% to $22.06, contributing to a 13.7% year-to-date gain. Today's pop could be the result of a short-squeeze situation, as nearly 13% of Finisar Corporation's available float is sold short, which would take over 10 sessions to cover, at average daily trading volumes.