Citigroup Holds Gains to Close Above $4

Citigroup closing share price included in this update.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Citigroup(C) rallied into the closing bell to finish at their highest level of Thursday's session after CEO Vikram Pandit delivered a bullish message at a company-sponsored investor conference in New York.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit

The stock jumped 22 cents, or nearly 6%, to $4.18, extending an impressive run-up this week that has seen the shares tack on 13% since their close last Friday at $3.50. Volume of 1.18 billion marked the issue's third consecutive session with more than 1 billion shares changing hands. The finish above $4 was the company's first since Dec. 7, when speculation about the TARP repayment plans it executed later in the month first began to surface, and its highest since Nov. 24. In afterhours action, the stock edged slightly higher to $4.20

Although the event where Pandit spoke -- the Citi 2010 Financial Services Conference -- was closed to the press, the speech was streamed on the Internet, and related presentation materials were available in a Form 8-K the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The slides released by the company indicate Pandit was very focused on the "growing opportunity" he sees in emerging markets, an area that he said was likely to represent more than 55% of Citigroup's potential revenue growth.

In terms of an outlook, another slide detailed the company's goal for a compounded annual growth rate of 5%, and a yearly return on assets of 1.25%-1.5%.

The buying interest earlier this week was been fueled by a confluence of bullish developments, including positive comments from influential hedge fund manager Bruce Berkowitz and debt research firm CreditSights earlier in the week, and a ravenous reception for an offering of $2 billion worth of trust-preferred securities, which priced late Wednesday. Dow Jones reported demand for the TrUPs was "huge" from both institutional and retail investors with orders exceeding more than $5 billion. This allowed Citigroup to lower the yield it would pay on the securities to 8.50% from the originally anticipated 8.875%, according to Dow Jones.

There was also a report earlier this week from Fox Business Network's Charlie Gasparino that the U.S. government is discussing plans to begin unwinding its roughly 27% stake in the company, possibly within the next three months.

Stoking interest earlier Thursday, prior to Pandit's presentation was a report from The Financial Times late Wednesday that said he would be detailing Citigroup's strategy for the attendees and that, by disclosing certain growth projections, he would raise the prospect of the bank earning as much as $20 billion from its core Citicorp business by the end of 2012.