Citigroup tries to stop the bleeding

(CNNMoney.com) -- The latest crop of quarterly numbers from the banking industry has proven promising so far. But with every harvest, there's always bound to be a few rotten apples in the bunch.

This quarter, it's likely to once again be Citigroup.

Analysts predict that the embattled bank will be one of only a few major financial institutions to record a net loss this quarter. Citigroup is scheduled to deliver its first-quarter results before Friday's opening bell.

According to current consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters, Wall Street is forecasting a loss of $1.39 billion, or 34 cents a share.

If Citigroup does post a loss, it would be the sixth consecutive quarter of red ink. The New York City-based bank has lost more than $28 billion since the credit markets began to unravel in late 2007.

But shares of Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), which briefly traded below $1 a share in early March, have soared in recent weeks along with the rest of the banking sector. The stock was trading at about $3.80 as of Wednesday afternoon.

Part of the rise can be attributed to relatively impressive results across the rest of the industry. Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) blew past Wall Street estimates when it reported a profit of $1.8 billion earlier this week. Last week, Wells Fargo said it anticipated a profit of $3 billion this quarter, much more than expected.

Citigroup has also signaled to Wall Street that its own fortunes may be improving. Last month, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit wrote in an internal memo to the company's staff that the bank was profitable during the first two months of 2009.

A modest improvement in capital markets activity, a surge in mortgage refinancings and a massive gap between the rates at which banks borrow money and make loans should be a huge boon for banks like Citigroup and rivals such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500).

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Infosys shares hurt by weak earnings forecast

(MarketWatch) -- Infosys Technologies on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, but its shares tumbled after the company forecast a decline in earnings for the current financial year, citing the impact of the global economic crisis on its clients.

India's second largest software exporter, which gets nearly 90% of its business from U.S. and European clients, reported net income of 16.13 billion rupees ($329 million) for the January-March period, from 12.49 billion rupees in the year-earlier quarter, helped by the rupee's weakness against the U.S. dollar.
Revenue increased 24% to 56.35 billion rupees as the company acquired 37 new clients, offsetting the impact of a fall in billing rates.
Citigroup said in a note to clients that the fourth-quarter results were below expectations in terms of business volume and pricing, and that higher non-operating income helped the company beat consensus estimates.

The forecast for the current financial year highlighted that "the outlook for the sector is still challenging," the report said. For the sector, the forecast meant that there were "no first signs of bottoming out," while the extent of the pricing pressure was "not factored into most estimates."

Read more at MarketWatch