Citigroup Inc‘s (NYSE: C) equity research team raised its price target on Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) from $23.00 to $26.00 after posting strong first quarter earnings results.
Citigroup’s analyst wrote, “Bank of America reported 1Q EPS of $0.28 vs consensus of $0.09 and our estimate of $0.06. Overall, the beat was driven by 1) $0.15 impact from better than expected credit ($2 bil below our estimate), 2) $0.15 from record trading revenues, offset by 3) $0.06 of higher than expected one time charges. This marks the second consecutive qtr of better than expected trends across all businesses and credit, giving us increased confidence in Buy rating and that this is most compelling opportunity in our universe…Raising 2010 est by $0.45 to $0.95 to reflect 1Q beat and better trading and credit trends, partially offset by NSF headwinds.”
