Bank of America Corp. is this year’s worst performer in the Dow Jones industrial average as concern about mounting mortgage losses and a global economic slowdown weighed on the second-biggest U.S. lender.
“What you have is like a three-ring circus, and in all the rings for Bank of America, the show isn’t any good,” said Greg Donaldson, chairman of Evansville, Ind.-based Donaldson Capital Management LLC, which oversees $500 million, including BofA shares.
Chief executive Brian Moynihan, 52, told his staff in a year-end progress report last week that his effort to boost the company’s value “is not yet translating into returns for our shareholders.”
Moynihan said he has prepared for turmoil ahead by selling assets, reducing mortgage and credit-card loans, and pledging to lower annual costs by $5 billion, including about 30,000 job cuts.
Some of Bank of America’s biggest peers also made the list of laggards, with Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, dropping 44 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest lender, slid 22 percent. American International Group Inc. fell 52 percent for the second-worst showing in the S&P Financials, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lost 46 percent.
– 58% The decline erased almost $80 billion of shareholder value at Charlotte, N.C.- based Bank of America. Its largest drop was a 66 percent plunge in 2008.
LAST The bank ended 2011 last in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the KBW Bank Index.
