Bank of America Corp (BAC): An Insider Bought $230,000 Worth

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)’s peers include Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase trade at 8 to 10 times their trailing earnings, as these companies have not  been struggling as much as the others over the past several quarters. This places them in value territory from our perspective, and we’d note that financially they have been doing well; JPMorgan Chase is also trading just a bit below the book value of its equity to boot. They both look like interesting targets for further research. Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) also carries a considerable discount to book value, with a P/B ratio of 0.7, and like Bank of America it is expected to improve its earnings over the next couple of years to the point where it pulls even with those two stronger megabanks. Its revenue was up 10% in its most recent quarter compared to the same period in the previous year, and might be worth watching. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), whose wealth management business competes with Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit, has also been recovering. Consensus earnings estimates for 2014 place it at 8 times forward earnings estimates, even with this peer group.

This insider purchase is worth noting, particularly with the same individual having bought stock recently, and we certainly don’t think it’s a good idea to be short Bank of America. However, we aren’t sure that the bank is a better value than some of its peers, particularly with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) as cheap as it is relative to both that bank’s book value and trailing earnings. That company or Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) look more worthy of further research to us at this time.

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.