Bank of America CEO Speech Lifts Shares

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) shares continued rallying today, the fifth day the stock seems poised to close higher, as trading was boosted by a widely-anticipated speech from its CEO. The wider market for large financial companies was mixed.

After opening in negative territory, Bank of America quickly recovered, oscillating between 1 and 1.5 percent higher than the previous day’s close while Chief Executive Brian Moynihan spoke at a Goldman Sachs banking conference in New York Tuesday. The Dow Jones Banks Titans 30 Index, a benchmark index of the largest banks in the world, was down close to 1 percent most of the morning, by comparison.

In his speech Tuesday morning, Moynihan spoke about upcoming bank stress tests which the U.S. Federal Reserve will be conducting on the bank, among others.

"It will be a stressful scenario, but I think we have gone through a lot of stressful scenarios in our industry," Moynihan said.

He also spoke about the various measures the bank had taken to shore up capital reserves, and, as expected, noted the bank will not seek to issue a dividend if it believed regulators were likely to nix the idea. In 2010, Moynihan famously announced a “modest” dividend increase would be forthcoming, only to have to backtrack after the Fed objected.

Shares of Banks of America Corporation were selling for $5.86 during mid-morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, up 7 cents, or 1.21 percent from the previous day’s close.