By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Now it’s time for some of today’s trending tickers. We’re watching citizens and travelers joining me now. We’ve got my morning brief co-host Madison Mills. Maddie, we got to talk about citizens financial group first. Citizens reporting adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter that beat analyst expectations. We also know that revenue came in line with estimates that interest income that came in at $1.4 billion. That’s also in line with expectations here. So, as we’re continuing to track the stock here on the day, a few more things to break down with the company citizens as investors are evaluating.
00:43 Speaker B
Yeah, it’s interesting this becoming the latest semi read on the consumer in terms of how they’re spending, but uh the companies are passing consensus EPS over the last four quarters here. Uh not necessarily being enough to lift the stock. You can see the stock down a little over 1% at the moment. You can see that movement taking up space this morning in terms of market movement here. I’m just taking a look at that EPSB and also um the net interest expansion here with revenue coming in at $1.94 billion. That was in line with expectations. And as I mentioned that net interest margin number really key here, expanding by three basis points to 2.9%. The return on tangible common equity reaching 9.6% as well. The CEO talking on the earnings call saying we delivered Q1 results that were in line with our expectations, talking about the company’s strategic focus on balance sheet optimization and operational resilience in an uncertain economic environment. Just becoming the latest CEO to talk about that uncertain economic backdrop amid the trade war that is continuing here, but not necessarily saying there’s any sign of a recession to come, just leading just continuing to repeat the uncertainty line.
02:36 Speaker A
Yeah, and that’s something that we’ve heard at the start of this earning season repeatedly. And we were just talking about with our previous guests as well. Next up, we got to talk about travelers. Travelers rising after a big beat on first quarter core earnings per share. Analysts noted that most of the beat was driven by business insurance results. We’re continuing to track shares of travelers right now. They’re getting a little bit of a bid today. They’re up by about 4.2% right now.
03:13 Speaker B
Yeah, also raising the cash dividend to a dollar 10 per share from the previous dividend of a dollar and five cents per share. You can see the stock price up a little over 4% at the moment. Most of the Q1 beat driven by business insurance, according to an analyst over at Morgan Stanley, talking about how uh there’s a little bit of a mixed picture under the hood here. Underwriting was strong on personal auto premiums growth was a bit soft, saying that uh the key will be how management navigates the uncertainty moving forward. Piper Sandler iterating a similar theme, saying the first impression is that it was a good quarter for travelers, but obviously calling it a first impression. So when you look under the hood, there is a little bit more uncertainty. Having said that, Evercore actually having a little bit more of a positive tone saying that travelers once again is setting a high bar for peers with underlying and underwriting and solid pricing, but the better underlying results in auto and home are likely unsustainable given tariffs. So that tariff uncertainty really being the theme for this earning season already.
04:43 Speaker A
Tariff uncertainty one part of it, but it also depends upon how you project the natural kind of un you know, unconservable like you can’t predict what catastrophe losses are going to look like. Is what I’m trying to say at the end of the day. And the number of billion dollar disasters has continued to rise year over year. And so with that in mind, catastrophe losses, they did note and you think about what happened early onset in 2025, the California wildfires. They did actually mark within this catastrophe losses of $2.266 billion pre-tax primarily driven by that event. So, it really does hinge on, especially for companies like travelers, what these catastrophe unfortunately look like going forward as well here.
06:04 Speaker B
Yeah, yeah, and that severe wind and hail storms also being a headwind there as well.
06:11 Speaker A
Maddie, thanks so much. Appreciate it. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session. It’s Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page.