INSTANT VIEW: Citi shares tumble to new 13-year low

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup shares tumbled 23 percent on Wednesday to a new 13-year low, leading the financial sector lower.

The bank, which was the top percentage decliner on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, earlier said it had agreed to buy $17.4 billion of assets remaining in a series of funds known as structured investment vehicles.

The shares had the heaviest volume of any share on the NYSE.

The following is reaction from industry analysts and investors:

TIM GHRISKEY, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, SOLARIS ASSET

MANAGEMENT, BEDFORD HILLS, NY.

"Citi's balance sheet is in the same shape that the other major banks are in, including JPMorgan, it's no worse off...We don't see the issue but we're not stepping up and buying the stock either."

"Clearly there's fear out there that there are deeper problems...we think those fears are misplaced but fear is very powerful."

"(Citi's options are) selling assets, the problem is that there are really no buyers of assets, it really is taking more money from the government under TARP, that's really the only option here."

WILLIAM LARKIN, FIXED INCOME MANAGER AT CABOT MONEY

MANAGEMENT IN SALEM, MASS:

"If you get below $10, that's sort of a danger zone."

"Right now they're sort of on the hit list. The financial sector and the insurance sector are really getting taken to the wood shed today."

"People are looking at their business model and wondering how on earth they're going to be able to survive in this. A lot of the funding issues that are going on, they're trying to put off until the next administration comes in -- that's another thing that scares anybody that's holding financial companies that are on the edge."

Their moves "came late in the game. People are interpreting the aggressive nature of that."

"With the market down again, I really think this General Motors thing is bad for the psyche. It's that market psychology that we need reversed, and the Obama bump is long gone. We need more optimism."

TOM SOWANICK, THE CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER FOR $22 BILLION

IN ASSETS AT CLEARBROOK FINANCIAL LLC, IN PRINCETON, NEW

JERSEY:

"The financial industry is under assault. It looks like the short-sellers are squeezing the hell out of Citi shares. The way the stock is trading today, it is clear that investors have lost confidence in what chief executive Vikram Pandit has to say and confidence in how he picks stocks including his own. Last week, Pandit bought 750,000 common shares in Citi, days before he announced problems at a Citi hedge fund and 52,000 lay offs. Good going Vikram."

DAVID DIETZE, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, POINT VIEW

FINANCIAL SERVICES, SUMMIT, NJ

"I guess we are all a little spooked here as to what they're doing with the SIV."

"Now that they're going to liquidate a hedge fund, unwind that structured investment vehicle and transfer the assets to a portfolio held for sale, you just wonder what it does for the balance sheet and of course it raises the question to whom and for what price?"

"The whole thing echoes quite frankly of Bear Stearns."

"(Bear) all started with them liquidating hedge funds... it's quite an eery echo that we are following the path that Bear went down."

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay, Jonathan Spicer and Jennifer Ablan)