Banks down because of flatter yield curve

AlfredSokol said: "Both Citi and Bank of America announced relatively disappointing earnings. The factors they cited are: [list] [*]Decline of long term interest rates [*]Net interest margins fell [*]Short term rates rose [/list] If these big operators are having trouble, it might be worth re-examining any bank stocks you have in your own portfolio."

HappyHarry said: "There's still a lot to like about the banks. Bank of America, however, is a bit perplexing to me."

trickynick said: "I bought more Citi today. In my opinion the market has overreacted to last quarter's earnings. The more they go down in the near term, the more I will continue to buy. Citi's P/E is the lowest it has been in a very, very long time. And anyone who thinks they have a long term problem can subtract their cash and equivallents from their long term debt, divide that number by the shares outstanding, subtract that number from the share price along with dividends for the period of time you plan to hold the stock and divide that number by the EPS for the trailing twelve months and see what you are REALLY buying this financial juggernaut for. The market is giving Citi away for nothing and Citi will do what Citi does until we are all long gone."

HappyHarry said: "The price looks very attractive these days. Citi is an enormous enterprise, and very few companies are really capable of competing with them."

StockFreak said: "[URL=http://www.bankstocks.com/article.asp?type=1&id=9880723]ARTICLE[/URL] Another perspective of BofA Harry."

HappyHarry said: "Definitely a great article! I agree with the sentiments. There doesn't seem to be any "synergy" that is driving these deals at all."