Stock & Options Trading

Bank of America Surpassed Citigroup in Market Cap

Bank of America (BAC) finally reached this milestone. I have both horses in my portfolio since last November and I cannot complain the performance so far: 22.5% return on BofA and 12.7% on Citigroup (C).

There is a new biggest bank on the block. After a 30-year fight to prove that a once-sleepy southern bank in North Carolina could best the giants of Wall Street, Bank of America Corp. has overtaken Citigroup Inc. as the world's largest bank by stock market value.

As of the 4 p.m. close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Bank of America's stock market value, also known as market cap, was $243.71 billion, 0.1% higher than Citigroup's market value of $243.52 billion. Bank of America said it was business as usual at its Charlotte, N.C., headquarters, with no champagne toasts or celebratory emails from senior management. A spokesman said the company was simply gratified the market "is recognizing the progress we're making at Bank of America."

In reality, some Bank of America executives have been obsessively tracking the competing market values daily, even hourly, for months, knowing to the cent how much Bank of America needed to gain in its share price -- or Citigroup to lose -- for the crown to change hands. Yesterday, Bank of America's share price rose 35 cents, or 0.7%, to $54.27, and Citigroup's fell 33 cents, or 0.7%, to $49.56.

The milestone marks a personal triumph for Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, who inherited a bank cobbled together through a two-decade acquisition spree engineered by former CEO Hugh McColl Jr., who retired in 2001. It fell to Mr. Lewis, now 57 years old, to update disparate bank systems and stem the hemorrhaging of customers acquired in mergers, in part by emphasizing aggressive, uniform sales tactics and a top-down, Charlotte-driven corporate culture. He also pulled off several additional, and critical, acquisitions, including the 2004 purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. and last year's takeover of MBNA Corp.