Bank of America Corp (BAC)

It is difficult to pick bottoms but at 30.5 BAC is really cheap. US government will not let Bank of America which is the largest bank by deposits go under. Also, the economic uncertainties made the fed allow BOA take over Countrywide and thereby become the #1 mortgage lender in the US as well. More than 8% dividend is enticing. Smarter people than myself (Warren Buffet, David Dreman, Brian Rogers, Richard Snow, etc. ) have bought this at higher prices in the last few months and now there is even insider buying. Is this the absolute bottom? who knows. But in 5 years, when the monopoly that BAC has been allowed to gain is paying off in a major way, people will start kicking themselves for not buying when there was blood on the streets.

EVEN I CAN BORROW MONEY AT 0% AND LOAN IT OUT AT

6-20+% AND MAKE A PROFIT....COUNTRYWIDE WILL BE

HUGE AS HOUSING RECOVERS.....MERILL WILL BE INVOLVED

IN MANY OF THE DEALS DURING THE RECOVERY

THIS STOCK WILL BE BACK TO $50 FASTER THAN ANYONE

THINKS

First, the "bad assets" do not go to zero. In fact, the "bad assets" have already been accounted for in the current price and as the economy slowly recovers, so will the value of the underlying investment.

Second, BAC has a huge footprint and is already in a nationwide position to benefit for a return to normal banking.

Third, BAC fundaments are strong.

Fourth, whether you like it or not, BAC is "too big to fail" so the risk of BAC going to zero is just about zero. And BTW, if BAC goes to zero, it will be in a very different and worse economy than we are currently living in.

For a long time, I would look at the immense derivative holdings of Bank of America and throw up my hands. How could you possibly value a company with over $38 trillion in derivative positions? Maybe it's worth a huge sum. Maybe not. But, now I think I have figured out how to take a pretty good stab at it, without even knowing what derivatives B of A holds. Either 1), B of A made the wrong bets, and it will soon go down in a crash far bigger than anything we have seen so far. If it loses only 3% on the derivatives, easy to imagine, that is over a trillion dollars. Or 2), it made the right bets. We already have an example of how that turns out. Goldman Sachs made the "right" bets, buying $20 billion of credit default swaps from AIG in 2007-2008. Very smart of them. Then, last September, AIG went bust, and Goldman's $20B went with it. Suddenly Goldman had to run to Warren Buffet for $5B in order to not breach their loan covenants. Anyway, imagine that B of A, by some miracle, actually made the right bets with its derivative portfolio. It's just not possible that its counterparties could pay up on the "winning" bets. Whoever was making the losing bets is already worse than broke. So, it's heads, B of A explodes, and tails, B of A crumbles. The best scenario is probably that it manages to cover up its situation, whatever that happens to be, for a few more months. The worst is that it goes kablooey in a few days or weeks. Most troubling to me is that the FDIC is already broke. It cannot bail out the banks already on its watch list. B of A is huge, far beyond the capacity of the FDIC to cope with. So, not only will stock owners be wiped out, depositors are also at huge risk. Check out the derivative situation for yourself. Thanks, Bulleye168, for this link to a U.S. Treasury report on U.S. companies' derivative holdings. If you scroll over halfway down, you can see the list of the top 25 derivative holders and the sizes of their portfolios. http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-152a.pdf

I bought this around $12 and expect it to be a winner for years to come until interest rates go way up. This company is growing very fast and hiring for all kinds of revenue streams including the housing market. Deposits are up huge and this money will gradually be used for loans as well as cash reserves. This will be a 3 bagger and dividends will grow as well. Screaming buy since early 2009!

One of well run big banks. Consistent growth and a nice dividend that keeps pace with it. Recent inroads into China should pay off nicely over the long haul and really add to the bottom line. Buy this, put it away, reinvest the dividneds and forget about it. Come back in 20-30 years and reap the rewards.

Bank of America (BAC) is down nearly 31% from its 52-week high. This is due to sub prime mortgages. Bank of America, however, focuses on personal banking and does not have much in the way of sub prime exposure. It is true that more write-downs are coming, and this willimpact the bottom line, but a 31% drop is simply Wall Street panicking (what’s new?).

BAC has been beaten up due to problems in the housing market, which I believe is already factored into the price. What is forgotten is they bought the largest mortgage writer in the country for 10 cents on the dollar. Whenver the mortgage volume returns to a pre bubble (normal) level, BAC will have a huge stream of income not currently reflected in the value of the stock. Mortgage volume is at a standstill and earnings are only down 26% (3.30 in 07 to 2.45 in 08) where as the Stock Price is down 40% 52.96 to 32.25 as of 8/8/08)

Its 4.3% dividend puts you almost half way to the average return of the S&P without any capital appreciation. Add to that BACs history of out performance and the Fed looking like it will stop raising rates in the near term, and you have a stock ready to continue its stellar performance.

I'm jumping into some financials. I'm not ready to officially put out a press release (would anyone read a press release I put out? Where would I put it anyway?) that they've bottomed out. In fact, I think there is still more to come, but, I do think the end is near. I'd rather get on the plane and wait to have the runway cleared for takeoff than chase after the plane as it is racing down the runway. (Reference Jim Carrey in Liar Liar on the motor-stairway, granted, it worked for him...)

I think BAC is in a specific place to do well as things turn. I think they will profit from a wave of refinances and the deal they worked with Countrywide.

Solid bank that pays more than 4% dividend and regularly increases it. I think these will outperform the S&P by a small margin for some years to come as I think the IT-revolution that saves banks heaps of money has only just started to kick in.

I'll be looking for more banks like this one, although this is probably an exceptionally good one.

Oh it's sad. I learn so much about stocks, but I should just ignore it all and simply follow Mr. Buffett. At least now I see why he picks who he picks, and this is a good one with great earnings and a huge dividend.

Once they incorporate Merril Lynch and Countrywide Financial, this will be a financial giant. When things are bleakest is the time to buy...that's today, given the sell off. Of course, this is in the assumption that confidence in the financial system does not completely disappear...

OK, well..i got in on gnw as a bank to diversify, now im gonna ride em like a pony for a bit...all the insider buying going to spur more consumer confidence and a feeling of "It could have beeen me that that stock doubled for if I would have only had some balls to pull the trigger. The government is NOT going to let any more LARGE banks fail. Especially its own namesake the bank of "America",. What messsage will that send to the world if that one goes under. In my real portfolio im waiting for a pullback before i invest, and even then it's going to be capital i could "do without". But for me, I feel these cycles come around literally once in a lifetime, if lucky twice, so BAC is for me"not to mention the local rep kisses my ass and doesnt even know me." Dammit if Bank of Amica fails then America has failed and that will never happen.

In two years probably less people are going to be kicking themselves in the arse for not buying. The acquisitions made recently have cost plenty of available capital. However if you figure out what BAC has undertaken when comparing it to WFC of JPM or any of the other big guys you have to come to the conclusion that they should have recieved more of tarp than the others. BUY.

When it comes to stocks, it's not always about being right or being wrong. It goes without saying that no one is such a brilliant investor that they are right 100% of the time as there are always huge unknowns out there. Given this, there is always risk; but with risk comes the potential for reward. Being right or wrong is not the most important consideration; understanding risk-reward and playing it in your favor is the most important factor.

I don't know if BAC will survive. A lot of the stocks I green thumb or red thumb on here I do quite a bit of research on before doing so. I see no reason to even bother researching BAC --- large cap isn't even the right word for this; try "Mega Cap"! When you have an operation that size, how well can you ever really understand their operations? Banking is a particularly tricky industry to analyze due to the heavy leverage of all the major players and the importance of asset valuation --- which is almost impossible at times.

That said, based on what I do know, I think BAC will survive and remain in tact. Maybe I'm right; maybe I'm wrong; but the more important thing is that if I'm wrong, I lose 100%; if I'm right, I make a gain in the 300-1000%+ range. To me, despite the heavy risk here, risk-reward works in favor of the long-side in a well diversified portfolio. Unfortunately, CAPS does not give me mechanisms to allocate my position (as in a real portfolio) so I am taking a bigger risk on here than I would in actuality (where I might suggest allocating less than 1% of your portfolio to this), but I feel like I have enough stocks on here that I can absorb the 100% loss if necessary.

I also like the arguments of Jason Schwarz in his Seeking Alpha article, "Eight Reasons Bank of America Is Going to $20".

It's risky and I won't be surprised if I lose, but I'm playing the green thumb and I'll have no regrets even if I'm wrong.

This is a tough one, with over 38 trillion in derivatives and an asset value around 1.2, BAC is going to explode in the next few years. Either horrifically, or terrifically, I can't be sure since this all depends on the value of derivatives, which no one seems to understand anyway.

One thing I do know though, the American people are stupid and refuse to believe their houses are worth less than 30% of what they paid for them. Mostly because they don't understand the reality of the market. And one thing I've learned is that off all the idiots in the world, American's are the most impressive idiots in every way. Despite all sense and reason people are going to find ways to keep their idiotic investments, which means those loans they're repaying won't lose the full 70% their houses did.

I have faith in BAC's ability to explode because I am moved by the misplaced faith of debt laden mortgage holders. So long as the unwise continue to screw themselves out of money, I believe BAC will be there doing the screwing and taking the money. God bless America.

GREAT DIVIDEND RECORD, USE DRIP METHOD AND WATCH IT GROW.

Even though Bank of America has risen from my initial buy price of 45 to ~52, I still think the shares are undervalued. Although morningstar thinks banks have only a small moat, in my opinion bac has the biggest moat of any other bank. Bank of America makes more money off of its customers than any other bank, by providing fewer free services and charging more for everything else. Look at how little interest they pay on cd's, yet they stil have people jumping into them thinking they are getting a great deal. My parents are a prime example in that they continue to use bac even though bac continues to provide them with shitty service. They still don't want to leave because they think it is to much of a hassle.