Dick Bove: Crazy-Smart, or Just Crazy?

He says his worst call was when he told clients to sell their bank-stock positions when the U.S. got involved in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Bove does not apologize for his outspokenness. "You have to be opinionated," he says. "If you're not willing to be opinionated, you really should not be doing this."

"I just try and be honest; I admit when I am wrong, he says. "I admit when I am right. I just tell people what I think. And I'm not trying to sell anybody anything."

But some observers point to Bove's more outrageous calls that have earned him his maverick reputation.

"He's known as kind of a kook on the Street," says one equity research analyst, who asked not to be named. "Part of it is because he's made these sort of statements to the press that are outrageous, and so the press loves him because he says things that are off the wall. But I don't think he knows the companies as well as some of the analysts on the Street."

Last month, Bove alleged that Citigroup's (C Quote) CFO Gary Crittenden violated Securities and Exchange Commission rules by making a material statement regarding further writedowns during a Webcast presentation.

"The fashion by which the company made this information available is questionable and unacceptable to this analyst," Bove wrote in a June 19 note. "Material information was made available but it is open to question if it was made available in a fair and honest fashion to all investors. Perhaps SEC FD is dead. Shame on Citigroup."