NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Citigroup (C) - Get Report were upgraded today to "outperform" from "market perform" at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, which raised their price target to $61 from $54. The stock is up 0.45% to $53.80 in pre-market trading. 

"We believe Citigroup has a clearer path to improved returns and the company should no longer trade at a discount to tangible book value. Citi should benefit longer term from the Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) - Get Report co-brand deal, and we believe that CCAR will be less meaningful for C no matter the result," analysts said.

Analysts believe that Citigroup will be able to control expenses in the current regulatory environment, and lower legal and repositioning helped move analysts' 2016 EPS estimates higher.

Accordingly, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased 2016 EPS estimates to $5.85 from $5.65 on lower expenses, a penny above consensus.

Altogether, they like the direction the company is heading with potential for Cards growth, reduced emerging market risk, and potential for capital return.

Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates CITIGROUP INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate CITIGROUP INC (C) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its good cash flow from operations and increase in stock price during the past year. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and poor profit margins."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

• Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 1537.12% to $27,291.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, CITIGROUP INC has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 303.10%.
• Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 4.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 2.5%. Weakness in the company's revenue seems to have hurt the bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.
• The company's current return on equity has slightly decreased from the same quarter one year prior. This implies a minor weakness in the organization. Compared to other companies in the Commercial Banks industry and the overall market on the basis of return on equity, CITIGROUP INC underperformed against that of the industry average and is significantly less than that of the S&P 500.
• The gross profit margin for CITIGROUP INC is rather low; currently it is at 22.63%. It has decreased from the same quarter the previous year. Along with this, the net profit margin of 1.66% significantly trails the industry average.
• You can view the full analysis from the report here: C Ratings Report