I'm still bullish on banks historically Citi and BAC have been around for a long time and both companies have managed to survive the depression. You have to think the valuations of these companies went up exponentially after WWII that being the point. How would it not benefit us to buy these stocks when their still priced relatively low in comparison to Book Value. Not to mention BAC has become a larger institution, ever since it swallowed up Country Wide and Merill Lynch. Sure, they didn't buy either company at the best of prices. But, they can honestly say after this mess is over the cash flow will increase from all the extra hard assets, extra information from these new units, and investment management for customers will return a massive return for Bank of America for the long term.
Overall Bank of America will be a bigger, heavier, and stronger company in 10 years. Since a lot of regional banks are going out of business customers will be forced to bank at BAC, WFC, C, and JPM.
These are the biggest names in the industry and some of them just got bigger through cheaper acquisitions that they thought they would never be able to get 5 years ago.
Trust me the book value and the tangibles with earnings from Merill and Countrywide on top of Bank of America's will amount to something wonderful 5-10 years down the road.
Bank of America is now officially the biggest bank in the United States and it's short term major risk of acquisitions may just give it a stronger advantage over many others for the years ahead.