Citi Analysts: Do as We Say, Not as We Do

Friday, March 21, 2008 11:02 a.m. EDT
Fans of irony will like this: Citigroup’s global equity strategy team just issued a report to clients urging them to stay away from leveraged investments.

Since Citigroup, one of the largest of the country’s financial institutions, was built on leverage, it would seem that the bank’s own strategists, led by Robert Buckland, are essentially issuing a screaming sell recommendation on their company’s stock.

The Citigroup strategists wrote what amounts to a scathing indictment of the bank’s own path to riches over the past decade — riches that are quickly turning to rags as the subprime mortgage market implodes.

"Steady growth, low inflation and rock-bottom interest rates encouraged economic and financial participants across the world economy to gear up over the past few years,â€