Top 5 Reason To 'Buy' Citigroup (C) and the Top 5 Reasons to 'Sell' It

Below we have listed the top 5 reasons to Buy Citigroup (NYSE: C) and and the top 5 reasons to sell it:

Top 5 Reasons to Buy It:

• The company is close to sustainable profitably. Once all the bad parts of the company are gone, the bank could be a profit machine. Some see "normalized" earnings as high a $1 per share.
  
• Citigroup peers are trading at a multiple of 1.75x tangible book value. Currently Citigroup trades just below 1x tangible book value of $4.15. If Citi were trading at the peer level it would be $7.26.
  
• Citigroup is"under-owned" by the institutional investment community: Big name hedge funds like John Paulson have been accumulating stock in Citigroup, but it is still very under-owned. With Citigroup stabilizing, other big time investors will likely buy the shares.
  
• The government will soon exit its share position in Citigroup. The 90 day stand-still on selling the shares ends on March 16th.
  
• Growing confidence in CEO Vikram Pandit from the investment community.

Top 5 Reasons to Sell It:

• The U.S. government is gearing-up to sell all or part of its 7.7 billion share stake, which would put short term pressure on the stock.
  
• Trading at or near 1x tangible book value which was $4.15 at the end of the last quarter. Many argued that Citigroup was a good buy since it was below book value. Now the company is at book value.
  
• All in there are about 29.2 billion shares of Citigroup outstanding, giving it a market cap of about $120 billion. This compares to much more profitable rivals like JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) ($173B), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) ($93B), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) ($154B), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) $43B)
  
• Trading a premium multiple to expected 2011 profits compared to peers. C at 12x 2011 EPS, JPM is at 9.2x, GS 8.6x, WFC 10.5x, MS 8.7x
  
• Additional write-offs, higher loan loss reserves.

So there you go - the top 5 reasons to buy and sell Citigroup. Do you have any others?

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