First Bank & Trust Cuts Holdings in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC)

First Bank & Trust decreased its position in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 6.7% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 7,910 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 564 shares during the period. First Bank & Trust’s holdings in Bank of America were worth $300,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Bank of America in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,734,407,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Bank of America by 10.5% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 104,030,844 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $3,502,720,000 after purchasing an additional 9,879,524 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Bank of America by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 41,833,075 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,408,520,000 after purchasing an additional 1,315,056 shares during the period. Parnassus Investments LLC grew its position in shares of Bank of America by 7.8% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 40,508,709 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,363,928,000 after purchasing an additional 2,935,040 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its position in shares of Bank of America by 12.1% in the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 40,189,379 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,216,000 after purchasing an additional 4,338,679 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 70.71% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Oppenheimer lifted their target price on shares of Bank of America from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Bank of America from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Bank of America from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $37.00 to $46.00 in a research report on Friday, June 14th. Evercore ISI boosted their price target on shares of Bank of America from $37.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 4th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Bank of America from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, May 20th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Bank of America has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $39.79.

Bank of America Price Performance

Bank of America stock opened at $39.77 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $38.91 and its 200-day simple moving average is $36.10. The company has a market capitalization of $311.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.52 and a beta of 1.36. Bank of America Co. has a 1 year low of $24.96 and a 1 year high of $40.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.79.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 16th. The financial services provider reported $0.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $25.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $25.49 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 13.94% and a return on equity of 10.88%. The business’s revenue was down 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.94 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Bank of America Co. will post 3.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of America Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 7th were paid a $0.24 dividend. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.41%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 7th. Bank of America’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 33.22%.

Bank of America Profile

Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), Global Banking, and Global Markets.