The US Treasury Department may have lost faith in Citigroup (NYSE: C), perhaps because  the new financial reform laws will undermine its earnings. What one hand giveth, the other taketh away.

The Treasury means to get out of Citi shares before a likely string of bad earnings.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its continued sale of its holdings of Citigroup common stock. Treasury has entered into a third pre-arranged written trading plan under which Morgan Stanley, as Treasury’s sales agent, will have discretionary authority to sell 1.5 billion shares of Citigroup common stock under certain parameters. And, Treasury now owns about 5.1 billion shares of Citigroup common stock and expects to continue selling its shares in the market in an orderly fashion.

Douglas A. McIntyre