Citi Spinners

Citigroup is jumping in front of their second-quarter 2008 earnings report with the slick ‘n silky smoothness of Bill Clinton getting caught with his pants down. In the pre-announcement, CFO Gary Crittenden said this:

Citigroup Inc could take substantial write-downs for subprime mortgages, leveraged buyout loans and other assets in the second quarter, the company’s chief financial officer said on a call with investors Thursday.

Gee whiz Gary, you mean Citi COULD take substantial write-downs this quarter? No Duh! Well, I bet you DO take substantial write-downs for the quarter, which are still substantially understated or off-loaded off your balance sheet. Gary, please.

The analysts are regurgitating the estimated write-down numbers provided by the bank so they can conveniently “beat the street” when they finally do report. UBS AG analyst Glenn Schorr gives them an 8.7 degree of difficulty:

Schorr estimated the New York-based company will write down $8.7 billion of assets in the quarter, he said in a note today. Schorr reduced his second-quarter estimate to a loss of 40 cents a share from a previous prediction of 37 cents in profit.

“There’s nothing really new here, just worse than what we and investors had been thinking,”

Nope, theres nothing different and nothing new; the game just goes on.

The company is always willing to look at acquisitions, and will make them where it makes sense, but is focusing more on improving its performance.

Citigroup? Performance? What performance, Gary?

With Citi shutting down Old Lane, the hedge fund co-founded by your own CEO, and your current hedge fund chief Steve Bowman selling you out , you couldn’t acquire anything but the plague. But lets see how much you acquire, Gary.

We do understand you Gary. The scent of Blood is in the air, short interest is at an all time high and the bears have changed from keeping pace to stalking a bank. You just gotta do something to keep the share price up. Do you think this little dutch boy routine will work?

Good luck. Gary!