Earnings

Citigroup tops Wall Street expectations for earnings and revenue

Citigroup will build momentum: Pro
VIDEO2:1702:17
Citigroup will build momentum: Pro

Citigroup announced third-quarter earnings and revenue Friday morning that topped Wall Street expectations.

The bank said it saw adjusted earnings per share of $1.24 on $17.76 billion in revenue for the quarter. Wall Street analysts had expected Citi to report earnings of about $1.16 a share on revenue of $17.36 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Those results represent a decline on both the top and bottom lines compared to adjusted earnings of $1.31 per share on about $18.5 billion in adjusted revenue for the third quarter of 2015.

"I am very encouraged by the underlying momentum across our franchise, notably in several areas where we have been investing," Citi CEO Michael Corbat said in a release. "In the quarter, both our Global Consumer Bank and Institutional Clients Group had solid year-over-year revenue increases in nearly every business line and geography. We also continued to grow core loans and deposits while reducing non-core assets to just 3% of our balance sheet."

Citi's fixed income markets performance was particularly notable in the quarter, jumping 35 percent year-over-year.

Michael Corbat, CEO, Citigroup
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Citi's stock has risen more than 9 percent over the last six months, but it remains down about 6 percent year-to-date after a rough start to 2016.

In general, investors are looking at Friday's spate of bank earnings announcements to offer some indication of the strength of the U.S. economy. One key area being watched is loan growth, which can indicated the health of businesses and consumers.

Over the last three months, banks have been one of the top performing sectors, but the firms have struggled the whole year with moderate economic growth, lowered expectations for a U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hike and one of the worst starts to a year for the U.S. stock market.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

—CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.