Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Trading 3% Higher on Analyst Upgrade

Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) shares traded up 3% on Friday after Wolfe Research upgraded the stock from a peer perform rating to an outperform rating. Wolfe Research now has a $42.00 price target on the stock. Bank of America traded as high as $36.88 and last traded at $36.84. 15,573,619 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 62% from the average session volume of 41,202,004 shares. The stock had previously closed at $35.77.

BAC has been the topic of several other reports. UBS Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 price target (up from $39.00) on shares of Bank of America in a report on Thursday, April 4th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on shares of Bank of America from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on shares of Bank of America from $33.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, April 5th. Oppenheimer lowered their price target on shares of Bank of America from $46.00 to $45.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Finally, HSBC reissued a “hold” rating and set a $39.00 target price (up from $38.00) on shares of Bank of America in a research note on Thursday, March 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $38.53.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of BAC. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Bank of America by 108,111.3% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 193,168,025 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $6,397,725,000 after purchasing an additional 192,989,515 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Bank of America during the 4th quarter worth about $3,734,407,000. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main raised its position in shares of Bank of America by 360.9% during the 4th quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 37,290,357 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,255,514,000 after purchasing an additional 29,198,846 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC raised its holdings in Bank of America by 97.3% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 41,290,694 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,130,538,000 after acquiring an additional 20,362,295 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Snider Financial Group raised its holdings in Bank of America by 9,477.3% in the 1st quarter. Snider Financial Group now owns 14,448,357 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $5,956,000 after acquiring an additional 14,297,496 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.71% of the company’s stock.

Bank of America Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $291.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.79, a P/E/G ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $35.68 and its 200 day simple moving average is $32.31.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 16th. The financial services provider reported $0.83 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $25.82 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $25.49 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 13.94% and a return on equity of 10.88%. Bank of America’s quarterly revenue was down 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.94 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Bank of America Co. will post 3.16 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of America Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st were issued a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.60%. Bank of America’s payout ratio is 33.22%.

Bank of America Company Profile

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), Global Banking, and Global Markets.