What Will Bank of America Do Post-Earnings?

With shares of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) trading around $15, is BAC an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE, or STAY AWAY? Let’s analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

T = Trends for a Stock’s Movement

Bank of America is a financial institution serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, corporations, and governments with a range of banking, investing, asset management, and other financial and risk management products and services. With its banking and various non-banking subsidiaries throughout the United States and international markets, the company provides a range of banking and non-banking financial services and products through several business segments: consumer and business banking, consumer real estate services, global banking, global markets, global wealth, investment management, and other.

Bank of America reported net income of $2.3 billion, or 19 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2014, compared to net income of $4 billion, or 32 cents per diluted share, in the year-ago period. Revenue, net of interest expense, on an FTE basis declined 4 percent from the second quarter of 2013 to $22 billion.”The economy continues to strengthen, and our customers and clients are doing more business with us,” said CEO Brian Moynihan in a press release. “Among other positive indicators, consumers are spending more, brokerage assets are up by double digits and our corporate clients are increasingly turning to us to help finance business expansion and merger activity. We are well positioned for further progress.”

T = Technicals on the Stock Chart Are Weak

Bank of America stock has struggled to make significant progress. The stock is currently pulling back and may need time to stabilize before heading higher. Analyzing the price trend and its strength can be done using key simple moving averages. What are the key moving averages? The 50-day (pink), 100-day (blue), and 200-day (yellow) simple moving averages. As seen in the daily price chart below, Bank of America is trading between its rising key averages, which signals neutral price action in the near-term.

Source: Thinkorswim

Taking a look at the implied volatility (red) and implied volatility skew levels of Bank of America options may help determine if investors are bullish, neutral, or bearish.

What does this mean? This means that investors or traders are buying a small amount of call and put options contracts, as compared to the last 30 and 90 trading days.

As of Wednesday, there is an average demand from call and put buyers or sellers, all neutral over the next two months. To summarize, investors are buying a small amount of call and put option contracts and are leaning neutral over the next two months.

On the next page, let’s take a look at the earnings and revenue growth rates and the conclusion.

E = Earnings Are Mixed Quarter-Over-Quarter

Rising stock prices are often strongly correlated with rising earnings and revenue growth rates. Also, the last four quarterly earnings announcement reactions help gauge investor sentiment on Bank of America’s stock. What do the last four quarterly earnings and revenue growth (Y-O-Y) figures for Bank of America look like and more importantly, how did the markets like these numbers?

*As of this writing.

Bank of America has seen mixed earnings and decreasing revenue figures over the last four quarters. From these numbers, the markets have had conflicting feelings about Bank of America’s recent earnings announcements.

P = Excellent Relative Performance Versus Peers and Sector

How has Bank of America stock done relative to its peers – JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and Citigroup (NYSE:C) — and sector?

Bank of America has been a relative performance leader, year-to-date.

Conclusion

Bank of America is a bank and financial services giant that operates in a recovering financial industry, the backbone of the United States economy. The company on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings that produced conflicting feelings among investors. The stock has struggled to make significant progress and is currently pulling back. Over the last four quarters, earnings have been mixed while revenues have been decreasing. Relative to its peers and sector, Bank of America has been a year-to-date performance leader. WAIT AND SEE what Bank of America does this quarter.

Let’s analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:

Using a solid investing framework such as this can help improve your stock-picking skills. Don’t waste another minute — click here and get our CHEAT SHEET stock picks now.

More From Wall St. Cheat Sheet:

• Bank of America May Be a Mess, But It’s a Pretty Good-Looking Mess
• Too Big to Fail or Too Many to Fail: Would Breaking Up Big Banks Work?
• Avoiding Big Banks: Why Financial Stocks Are Risky

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