Jane Fraser will be the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank
The shares of Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) are down 0.5% at $51.15 at last check, despite the bank earlier naming consumer banking head Jane Fraser as its next chief executive officer in a historical move, making her the first woman to lead a major Wall Street bank. Fraser has been a prominent figure in the financial industry for the past several years, and her promotion was celebrated as a step in the right direction for an industry that has few women or diverse executives.
On the charts, the equity has been trading sideways for the past couple of months. While a floor has emerged as the round $50 level, the shares' 150-day moving average stymied rallies above. As it currently stands, Citigroup shares have a long way to go before reaching this year's pre-pandemic high of $83.11 on January 14, and remain down 36% year-to-date.
Analysts are majorly optimistic towards C, however, with 13 of the 15 in coverage sporting a "buy" or better rating, and not a single "sell" to be found. Meanwhile, the equity's 12-month consensus target price of $69.21 is a 35.9% premium to its current perch.
That optimism is reflected in the options pits, where calls reign supreme. The security sports a 50-day call/put volume ratio of 3.72 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), which sits in the 98th percentile of its annual range. This suggests a healthier-than-usual appetite for bullish bets of late.
Traders looking to speculate on Citigroup stock's near-term trajectory should consider options. The security's Schaeffer's Volatility Index (SVI) of 41% sits in the 19th percentile of its annual range, suggesting short-term options are pricing in relatively low volatility expectations. In other words, the stock's near-term options are attractively priced at the moment.