Sifting through countless of stocks in the Banks industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc.

Citigroup Inc., a diversified financial service holding company, provides various financial products and services to consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions. It operates through five segments: Services, Markets, Banking, U.S. Personal Banking, and Wealth. The Services segment includes treasury and trade solutions, which provides cash management, trade, and working capital solutions to multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public sector organizations; and securities services, such as cross-border support for clients, local market expertise, post-trade technologies, data solutions, and various securities services solutions. The Markets segment offers sales and trading services for equities, foreign exchange, rates, spread products, and commodities to corporate, institutional, and public sector clients; and market-making services, including asset classes, risk management solutions, financing, and prime brokerage. The Banking segment includes investment banking services comprising equity and debt capital markets-related strategic financing solutions; advisory services related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings, and corporate defense activities; and corporate lending consists of corporate and commercial banking. The U.S. Personal Banking segment provides proprietary and co-branded card portfolios; and traditional banking services to retail and small business customers. The Wealth segment offers financial services to high-net-worth clients through banking, lending, mortgages, investment, custody, and trust product offerings; professional industries, including law firms, consulting groups, accounting, and asset management; and affluent and high net worth clients. The company operates in North America, the United Kingdom, Japan, North and South Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Citigroup Inc. was founded in 1812 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

LPL Financial Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides an integrated platform of brokerage and investment advisory services to independent financial advisors and financial advisors at institutions in the United States. The company’s brokerage offerings include variable and fixed annuities, mutual funds, equities, fixed income, alternative investments, retirement and 529 education savings plans, and insurance; and client cash programs consist of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured bank sweep vehicles, and a client cash and money market account. It also provides fee-based platforms that provide access to mutual funds, exchange traded funds, stocks, bonds, certain options strategies, unit investment trusts, institutional money managers, and no-load multi-manager variable annuities. In addition, the company offers retirement solutions for commission and fee-based services that allow advisors to provide brokerage services, consultation, and advice to retirement plan sponsors. Further, it provides other services comprising tools and services that enable advisors to maintain and grow their practices; trust, investment management oversight, and custodial services for estates and families; an advisor-facing trading and portfolio rebalancing platform; insurance brokerage general agency services; and technology products, including proposal generation, investment analytics, and portfolio modeling. The company was formerly known as LPL Investment Holdings Inc. and changed its name to LPL Financial Holdings Inc. in June 2012. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. was founded in 1989 and is based in San Diego, California.

Latest Banks and Citigroup Inc., LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Stock News

As of September 2, 2026, Citigroup Inc. had a $225.3 billion market capitalization, compared to the Banks median of $750.0 million. Citigroup Inc.’s stock is up 18.4% in 2026, up 4.1% in the previous five trading days and up 41.74% in the past year.

Currently, Citigroup Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 14.6. Citigroup Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $81.7 billion with a 21.8% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 15.5%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $11.155 per share for the current fiscal year. Citigroup Inc. currently has a 2.0% dividend yield.

As of September 2, 2026, LPL Financial Holdings Inc. had a $28.0 billion market cap, putting it in the 89th percentile of all stocks. LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s stock is up 0.9% in 2026, down 0.2% in the previous five trading days and down 2.13% in the past year.

Currently, LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 28.3. LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $19.2 billion with a 5.2% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 36.4%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $24.023 per share for the current fiscal year. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. currently has a 0.3% dividend yield.

How We Compare Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

Learn more about A+ Investor here!

Sign Up to Receive a Free Special Report Showing How A+ Grades Can Help You Make Smarter Investment Decisions

Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Growth Grades

Company	Ticker	Growth
Citigroup Inc.	C	F
LPL Financial Holdings Inc.	LPLA	D

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

Citigroup Inc. has a Growth Score of 20, which is Very Weak. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. has a Growth Score of 40, which is Weak.

The Growth Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. has a high enough Growth Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. is the better investment when it comes to sustainable growth.

Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s Quality Grades

Company	Ticker	Quality
Citigroup Inc.	C	F
LPL Financial Holdings Inc.	LPLA	C

Like the Value Grade, AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the percentile rank of key metrics. Specifically, the Quality Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and the F-Score.

The score is variable, meaning it can consider all eight measures or, should any of the eight measures not be valid, the remaining measures that are valid. To be assigned a Quality Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) measure and corresponding ranking for at least four of the eight quality measures.

The Quality Score is used to assess the underlying “quality” of a particular stock. A higher-quality stock possesses traits associated with upside potential and reduced downside risk. Backtesting of the Quality Grade shows that stocks with higher grades, on average, outperformed stocks with lower grades over the period of 1998 through 2019.

Stocks receive better grades (higher scores) for having higher scores for the quality subcomponents and worse grades (lower scores) for lower scores for the subcomponents.

Citigroup Inc. has a Quality Score of 18, which is Very Weak. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. has a Quality Score of 58, which is Average.

The Quality Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. has a high enough Quality Grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolios. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. is the better investment when it comes to quality.

Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s Estimate Revisions Grades

Company	Ticker	Earnings Estimate
Citigroup Inc.	C	B
LPL Financial Holdings Inc.	LPLA	C

Earnings estimate revisions scores consider the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, positive surprises beget further positive surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

Estimate revisions offer an indication of what analysts are thinking about the short-term prospects of a firm. Estimate revisions are based on the statistical significance of a firm’s last two quarterly earnings surprises and the percentage change in its consensus estimate for the current fiscal year over the past month and past three months.

Citigroup Inc. has a Earnings Estimate Score of 67, which is Positive. LPL Financial Holdings Inc. has a Earnings Estimate Score of 60, which is Neutral.

The Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade Winner: Citigroup Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade breakdown above, Citigroup Inc. has a better Earnings Estimate Revisions Grade than LPL Financial Holdings Inc.. For those who are specifically looking for companies with better short-term prospects when compared to other companies in the same industry, Citigroup Inc. could be a good stock to invest in. However, it’s important to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Other Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Grades

In addition to Estimate Revisions, Quality and Growth, A+ Investor also provides grades for Value and Momentum.

Momentum grades help uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming.

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection. Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Citigroup Inc. or LPL Financial Holdings Inc. Stock?

Overall, Citigroup Inc. stock has a Growth Score of 20, Estimate Revisions Score of 67 and Quality Score of 18.

LPL Financial Holdings Inc. stock has a Growth Score of 40, Estimate Revisions Score of 60 and Quality Score of 58.

Comparing Citigroup Inc. and LPL Financial Holdings Inc.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.