New York place completed an increase of 5

Once is not custom, Citi brought Wall Street to heights. New York place completed an increase of 5.8 per cent yesterday on the basis of an internal memo from Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citi (read our information page 28).

He explained to his troops, whose morale has been seriously reached after the stock market spiral of last week, which brought the title of ISIC at the level of a "penny stock", that the Bank was profitable in the first two months of the year.

"We are doing our best quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2007." "In January and February, our revenues amounted to $ 19 billion", wrote the President and CEO of Citi. Deposits are stable and the various banking activities of the group have good results.

"You have successfully an impressive work by growing revenues and reducing our costs of structure". It is gratifying to observe the results. "The title of ISIC is available 37,14 yesterday.

Vikram Pandit also recalled that the last intervention of the State, two weeks ago, would consolidate the capital into shares of $ 81 billion, against a participation which now stands at 36.

For its part, the joint-venture of Smith Barney with Morgan Stanley will bring some additional $ 14 billion. Federal authorities continue to consider new options for the Bank based on the sequence of events. According to the "New York Times" of yesterday, the hypothesis of a "bad bank" to resume the toxic assets of Citi and other banks is still on the table.

Commitment of the State

The words of Ben Bernanke, who spoke yesterday before the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, have also helped maintain the euphoria on stock markets. The President of the Federal Reserve (Fed) has reaffirmed the commitment of the State to support the financial sector and indicated that, if the banking system stabilized, it would be possible to get out of the recession at the end of the year. At the time, in the wake of Citi, the actions of the major American banks have soared. JPMorgan Chase has been raking 22,64, Wells Fargo 18,46 and Bank of America 27,73.

"Recovery" in 2010

European values have followed the movement, also brought by the recent statements by the Governor of the European Central Bank (ECB). Global growth should be close to zero in 2009, with a "recovery" in 2010, announced Jean-Claude Trichet at the end of the bi-monthly meeting of the G 10 at the headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements (bis). "There is a very strong commitment of the authorities, Governments do not leave sinking of systemically important institutions (...)" "that has not been fully taken into account by the markets", he added.

Their way, probably excessive, awards seem to want to take it to the word. The major European markets soared yesterday, the image of the CAC 40, which took nearly 6 (see page 17). AXA ( 20) and BNP Paribas ( 17) led the ball of the financial values, all in the green for the first time since a long time.

More surrounded by values on the main places included Dutch Aegon ( 22), German Deutsche Bank ( 16) and Italian UniCredit ( 13). Investors therefore parieraient the end of the banking crisis that the U.S. Government has launched twenty institutions strength tests to test their ability to lend and capital needs.