BofA shares fell the most since April 2025. The market was spooked by the bank’s CEO’s remarks

Bank of America (BofA) shares closed trading on September 14 down more than 5%, at $59.47, marking their sharpest decline since April 2025, according to Barron’s. This came after the bank’s CEO, Brian Moynihan, stated that BofA’s revenue from sales and trading operations in the current—third—fiscal quarter would remain “flat” compared with last year.

“This will be one of the best third quarters we’ve ever had—but it will be relatively on par with last year, because last year saw a strong rebound after the second quarter,” Mooneyhan said at the Barclays Financial Services Conference, referring to Wall Street’s strong trading revenues in 2025. “The underlying economy is fine, and business is going well, so it’s just the movements in the capital markets that make you feel a little uneasy,” Moynihan noted, adding, “It’s actually a pretty good quarter.”

Moynihan also presented a bleak outlook for BofA’s quarterly transaction-based fee revenue (this category includes the bank’s revenue from advisory services related to mergers and acquisitions, underwriting, including IPO advisory and other services). He stated that investment banking fees in the third quarter are expected to range from $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion, which is approximately 10–20% lower than the $2 billion earned in the third quarter of last year, according to Yahoo Finance. According to data from the analytics firm Dealogic, the broader investment banking market as a whole is expected to contract by approximately 10% year-over-year during this period.

“We aren’t as well positioned in some business areas where there’s more activity,” Moynihan said, noting that the pipeline of planned deals remains strong and “in part, the challenge is simply getting the deals through the system”. For example, BofA’s competitor, Morgan Stanley, saw its second-quarter earnings boosted by SpaceX’s massive IPO.

Bank of America will report its third-quarter results in mid-October.

Moynihan’s comments spooked investors in the banking sector: shares of other Wall Street banks also fell, according to Barron’s. Specifically, Citigroup shares fell 1.9% the previous day, JPMorgan Chase shares fell 1.7%, and Goldman Sachs shares fell 3.9%.

Nevertheless, BofA’s stock has gained more than 8% since the beginning of the year. According to MarketWatch, the consensus analyst rating for the bank’s stock is “Overweight” (better than the market). The overwhelming majority of experts recommend buying the financial giant’s stock (21 experts), while six more advise holding it in portfolios. There are no sell recommendations. Analysts’ average price target for BofA shares—$68—suggests upside potential of approximately 15% from Monday’s closing price.

In the first and second quarters of 2026, Bank of America posted record revenues driven by high trading activity among investors in the stock markets and was one of the main beneficiaries of the volatility triggered by military actions in the Middle East.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor