Dick Bove: Crazy-Smart, or Just Crazy?

It's just another day on the job for veteran equities analyst Richard X. Bove when he says Wachovia (WB Quote), its board and its interim management "have no idea how to run this company."

Bove's perception came after the Charlotte, N.C., bank announced last week that it had ceased making option adjustable-rate mortgages. Wachovia's roughly $120 billion option-ARM portfolio has caused the company to take billions of dollars of losses as the housing market dropped, leading the reeling bank to push out CEO Ken Thompson.

"The company has articulated no new strategy; presented no new business model; selected no new CEO; and/or connected with no new acquisition partner. ... These guys ran this company into the ground and they have no idea as to how to get it out of trouble except to stop making Pick-a-Pay mortgages," he writes. "Therefore I am making a suggestion. Hire [former Morgan Stanley CEO] Phil Purcell as CEO."

Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. But the 67-year-old Bove always attracts a substantial amount of attention by voicing confrontational, often on-target opinions of the 27 banks and brokerage firms he covers.

Bove and other outspoken analysts, like Oppenheimer & Co.'s Meredith Whitney, were among the first of their peers to call out banks and brokerages on their overextended leveraging and their need to raise capital before the first rumblings of a credit crisis.

Bove's candor and accessibility to the media have earned him frequent guest spots on the financial television network CNBC and quotes in major national newspapers. Still, Bove says he sometimes feels overwhelmed by the amount of calls he gets each day from the media. But Ladenburg Thalmann(LTS Quote), Bove's employer since May, when the brokerage bought Punk Ziegel, loves the publicity.