Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) Shares Sold by Courier Capital LLC

Courier Capital LLC lowered its holdings in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 0.2% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 142,972 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 358 shares during the quarter. Courier Capital LLC’s holdings in Bank of America were worth $4,814,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Bank of America by 108,111.3% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 193,168,025 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $6,397,725,000 after acquiring an additional 192,989,515 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Bank of America in the fourth quarter worth approximately $3,436,543,000. Barclays PLC lifted its stake in Bank of America by 97.3% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 41,290,694 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,130,538,000 after acquiring an additional 20,362,295 shares during the last quarter. Snider Financial Group lifted its stake in Bank of America by 9,477.3% in the first quarter. Snider Financial Group now owns 14,448,357 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,956,000 after acquiring an additional 14,297,496 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its stake in Bank of America by 3,474.6% in the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 11,658,881 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $480,579,000 after acquiring an additional 11,332,721 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.71% of the company’s stock.

Bank of America Stock Performance

Shares of Bank of America stock opened at $37.83 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 0.80 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $298.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.32, a PEG ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 1.38. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $34.35 and its 200-day simple moving average is $31.26. Bank of America Co. has a 12 month low of $24.96 and a 12 month high of $37.85.

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 12th. The financial services provider reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.69 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $22 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $23.70 billion. Bank of America had a net margin of 15.42% and a return on equity of 11.38%. Bank of America’s revenue was down 10.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.85 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Bank of America Co. will post 3.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Bank of America Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.54%. Bank of America’s dividend payout ratio is currently 31.27%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on BAC. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of Bank of America from $30.00 to $33.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 1st. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on shares of Bank of America from $37.00 to $36.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $50.00 to $46.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Bank of America from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $41.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Bank of America from $39.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 2nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $35.65.

Bank of America Company 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.