Citi beats expectations after loss on brokerage

NEW YORK - Citigroup (C) says it has beat Wall Street predictions for quarterly earnings after stripping out a big loss on its retail brokerage and other one-time charges.

Net income was $3.3 billion, excluding one-time items. That amounts to $1.06 per share, beating the 96 cents predicted by analysts polled by financial data provider FactSet. Analyst predictions generally exclude one-time charges and gains.

Revenue, after the special charges, was $19.4 billion. That beat expectations of $18 billion.

The bank wrote down $4.7 billion after agreeing to sell its portion of retail brokerage Morgan Stanley Smith Barney for less than it had hoped. Including that and other one-time charges, net income was $468 million, and revenue was $14 billion.