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I mean Tuesday
I mean Tuesday
This used to trade at $70 per share before the housing crash. The housing market is recovering and we still have a lot of room left for it to go much higher. Can't wait for tomorrow!
This used to trade at $60 per share before the housing crash. The housing market is recovering and we still have a lot of room left for it to go much higher. Can't wait for tomorrow!
We just did. Now we are heading for higher highs
Turning back up soon!
Turning back up again soon!
Bank of America is making significant progress in working its way out of the hole that its previous leadership had dug it into. Its restructuring efforts and the wave of settlements it's made over the years, of which the MBIA transaction is the latest, demonstrates that management is committed to moving away from the company's legacy and focused instead on bringing Bank of America back to its historic levels of profitability. Meanwhile, the recovering mortgage market and the fertile capital markets augur well for the company's earnings going forward.
Given these factors, we believe that Bank of America will not trail the S&P 500 for long and could see its shares above $18.50 by year's end.
Bank of America reported a 13% decline in mortgage revenues in 1Q 2013, which is consistent with the experience (if not the magnitude thereof) of its competitors such as JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC). One positive development is that the recent mortgage bankers survey suggests that second-quarter mortgage activity is improving at a 12% annualized pace, which should enable money center banks to recover lost ground.
Indeed, Bank of America is expected to see earnings of 97 cents this year, though that may be adjusted down to 87 cents following the MBIA settlement. Even using the lower figure, however, its annual earnings improvement would be in the magnitude of 248%. This earnings recovery is expected to persist into 2014: earnings per share are expected to rise to $1.27, an improvement of between 31 and 46% over 2013's expected number.
Including 2014, earnings per share are expected to grow by an average of 23.4% over the next five years - an impressive turnaround from the average contraction of 21.4% in the previous five years. This compares favorably to the 8.5% growth expected from the banking industry as a whole for the same period, which also trails the 9.4% earnings growth rate anticipated for the S&P 500.
Ostensibly, Bank of America will gain traction not only from the continued recovery of the mortgage market but also through a combination of the expansion of its investment banking activities, in which it is currently ranked second in terms of global investment banking fees, and wealth management, where its revenues are at their highest since Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch.
At the risk of overstating things, this is why Bank of America's settlement with MBIA and other legacy claimants is important: management can focus on the more substantive (to shareholders, anyway) parts of managing its business of banking rather than dealing with regulators or aggrieved parties.
Related to this renewed focus, Bank of America has already moved forward with its "New BAC" project, which it now expects will save it $8 billion a year by 2015. In our view, the biggest danger for Bank of America going forward is not litigation so much as execution: it cannot afford any further bungles such as imposing a $5 surcharge on debit card transactions.
Valuation and Fundamentals
On the face of it, Bank of America is currently expensive. After adjusting for the MBIA settlement, its stock is now trading at 61x its trailing 12-month earnings. Yet Bank of America's earnings are impaired by its legacy costs and up-front restructuring charges, which have taken a huge amount away from its bottom line. By the less-cluttered measure of its price-to-sales, Bank of America is actually trading at a discount: 1.45x to 1.8x for its industry.
The same relationship holds on a price-to-book value basis: Bank of America is trading at 0.66x compared with 0.98x. Considering that the typical rule-of-thumb valuation for a financial entity is 2x book value, it is evident that the market is still wary of financial institutions in general and of Bank of America in particular. In that sense, and coupled with its future earnings prospects, it can be said that there is a much better company hidden beneath the uncertainty of litigation.
Moreover, Bank of America shareholders can take comfort in the fact that certain of its key metrics are trending in the right direction: its current net income margin is now at 5.7%, better than a four-fold improvement over its performance over the past five years - and far better than its industry's 0.12% margin. At the same time, its return on investment should improve further if its bet on MBIA proves correct - something that it could use given its break-even ROI over the past five years.
Conclusion
Bank of America is making significant progress in working its way out of the hole that its previous leadership had dug it into. Its restructuring efforts and the wave of settlements it's made over the years, of which the MBIA transaction is the latest, demonstrates that management is committed to moving away from the company's legacy and focused instead on bringing Bank of America back to its historic levels of profitability. Meanwhile, the recovering mortgage market and the fertile capital markets augur well for the company's earnings going forward.
Given these factors, we believe that Bank of America will not trail the S&P 500 for long and could see its shares above $18.50 by year's end.
The support at 1.40 is pretty strong.
We are moving back up. May options are expiring this Friday. Hope we can keep going up.
We will be back in the $2 range very soon. Got some pretty nice bargain shares from the shake. :)
Nice shake! Now it's time for the fun to begin again. :)
1.60 coming
Nice little shaking up the tree. Time for me to buy the dips. :)
Shaking the tree a little before the next run. :)
Here comes 2.5 in the morning. 3's is next in line.
AH looking pretty good again.
Probably tomorrow morning.
It looks like its getting ready for the next run.
It can go down as fast as it went up. Hope to see you longs profit more but it seems like it slowing down. GLTA!
High 60s is also my target.
Sold my shares. Enjoyed the run but its time for me to stay on the sideline and watch.
I can't wait for the 30k Tesla to come out in 2015. I will definitely buy one since its more in my price range. Sales will go crazy when this model come out.
Nice run again. I am waiting for a pull back before I get back in again. Can't complain about the profit and the company.
It still need to fill up the gap for today's rise. Maybe the next quarter it might hit it. But for now I don't think so yet.
You will need to hold your shares through the end of tomorrow to be eligible for the payout on the 16th. People who sell tomorrow will not receive the $3.05 per share dividend.
I think this will be green on the open tomorrow.
Wolverton: Samsung's Galaxy S4 less innovative than it seems
BY TROY WOLVERTON MERCURY NEWS COLUMNIST - SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
PUBLISHED: MAY 8, 2013, 6:21 AM
UPDATED: MAY 8, 2013, 6:23 AM
Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy S4 phone - © Adrees Latif / Reuters
When Samsung announced its new Galaxy S4 in March, it put some serious doubts into this longtime iPhone user.
The new superphone was clearly designed to surpass Apple's (AAPL) iconic device -- and every other smartphone on the market -- with a host of new and improved hardware and software features. Frankly, I was worried Samsung had gone overboard, and that the company would have difficulty conveying to consumers just one or two standout features. But as an iPhone owner, a part of me was jealous: The past several iPhones have offered few exciting innovations other than Siri.
It turns out that I needn't have been jealous. Few of the Galaxy S4's new features work well, are useful or are truly unique.
Don't get me wrong, I still found things to like about Samsung's new gadget. It's fast. Its display is sharp and impressive -- if a bit oversaturated for my tastes. And I love that despite having a larger screen and a longer-lasting battery, it's thinner, narrower and lighter than its predecessor, the Galaxy SIII. It's clearly one of the top Android devices on the market.
What makes the gadget stand out, though, are all of the new software features Samsung has added on top of Android, many of them exclusive to the device. But after spending several days testing those features, I was less impressed with the Galaxy S4 than I expected to be -- and am no longer considering ditching my iPhone.
Among the new features Samsung's touting are new shooting modes for the Galaxy S4's camera app. One, called "Drama," is designed for action shots and allows users to combine multiple images of a moving subject into one picture. You're supposed to be able to see the progression of a skier jumping or a skateboarder taking a tumble.
But the mode is finicky and difficult to use. It won't record any pictures if you have more than one thing moving in the frame at a time or if you are standing too close to the person you're photographing. And even when I got the feature to take pictures, I never could get it to merge multiple images in the same picture.
Another new mode called "Sound and Shot" records the ambient sound as you take a still picture. Unfortunately, you can listen to the recordings only if you've got a Galaxy S4 phone. If you view the photos on an iPhone on a PC or even on another Android device, you won't be able to hear the sound.
Still another feature Samsung is promoting is its new WatchOn app, which, thanks to the Galaxy S4's built-in infrared emitter, allows you to use the phone as a remote control for your TV or set-top box. The feature also recommends programs and movies for you to watch.
However, I found the app less useful than some I've downloaded for my iPhone, and it didn't convince me to give up my plain, old remote controls. One big problem: While you can use the app to search for shows that will be aired in the future, in most cases, you can't simply tap on those listings to have your DVR to record them. Instead, you have to go to your DVR directly, which means you might as well save a step and just search for the programs there.
But the most disappointing of the Galaxy S4's new features were those that make it most distinct: its collection of gesture controls. You've probably seen Samsung's ads touting these features. They show people answering their phone with a wave of the hand or scrolling through a Web page by just looking at it.
Those features may work well in Samsung's ads, but not in real life. I rarely was able to get the Galaxy S4 to scroll pages just by scanning down the page. And I was able to wake the phone up by waving at it only about a third of the times I tried. While I had better luck using gestures to scroll through photos in the gallery app, I had to be careful how I waved; sometimes, I would inadvertently find myself flipping back and forth between the same pictures.
Even when these features worked as advertised, they weren't terribly useful because they're supported by only a handful of apps. You can't use them with Gmail, Chrome or many other popular programs.
So, I'm sticking with my iPhone. In reality, it's not as outclassed as Samsung would have you believe. Many of the shooting modes found on the Galaxy S4 are already available for iPhone users through apps. So, too, are many of the Samsung device's entertainment features. While the iPhone doesn't have gesture controls, that's not a big disadvantage in my view. On top of all that, I prefer the iPhone's smaller screen.
The bottom line is the Galaxy S4 is a perfectly fine Android smartphone. But all of its supposed innovations are less than they seem.
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or twolverton@mercurynews.com. Follow him at www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton or Twitter.com/troywolv.
Most likely tomorrow everyone will be holding their shares to collect the dividend. I think it will move up faster when we get closer to power hour.
I think tomorrow and Thursday will be interesting since the pre-dividend is scheduled for Thursday the 9th.
I added some more on this dips.
Nice bounce! Go BAC!
I think this will be at $500+ by the end on the 9th. Go APPL!
So that means that this will go even higher since people are looking forward on the $3.05 dividend payout. Glad I bought some shares. Looking forward to next week.
That would be nice. My buy from yesterday is looking pretty good right now.
I did the same thing. Now I am on the sideline waiting for a good entry point.
Here we go! Up and up to $12.94 very soon.
Just bought more on the dip. It's time for BAC to go higher. I think today will be a green day.
Isn't dividend coming out next week? Did they just raise it to $3.05? $AAPL