Pros, Cons to Buying Bank of America Stock

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) comes from a rich Roman heritage, founded as Bank of Italy back in 1904.Its banking model was primarily geared to the middle-class, created as a financial institution to service the waves of immigrant families arriving in Northern California at the turn of the 20th century. It wasn’t until 1930 that the bank hung a new shingle outside its branches, thus launching the prominent Bank of America brand. That rolled out as struggling Americans were looking for financial help as the Great Depression raged throughout the country. Both the U.S. and Bank of America survived the depression and, thanks in major part to its purchase of Merrill Lynch (purchased in 2009), Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the U.S. with $2.3 trillion in assets under management, second only to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM).In 2018, however, bank stocks have largely underperformed against broader markets, and BAC is no exception, as financial institutions grapple with stronger digital competition, higher interest rates and an increasingly negative outlook on financial services in the next year or two. Can Bank of America claw back and keep riding the larger economic wave rolling across the U.S. in late 2018? BAC stock at a glance. BAC stock had a lackluster year in 2018, with share prices down 6 percent on a year-to-date basis compared to a gain nearly 2 percent of the S&P 500 index.