Outlook for Banks Is Bullish, Poll Shows

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The recent market view of the banking sector has been fairly schizophrenic. Of course, there has to be a bull for every bear, and a buyer for every seller, for the wheels of capitalism to keep-on-a-moving, but recent big-wig opinions on banking have been downright hard to reconcile.

One day, star bank analyst Meredith Whitney is playing the banking sector version of Chicken Little, calling her bear outlook and expecting the sky to fall on Wall Street's big boys at any moment. A frustrated group of banks, climbing the long uphill battle to recovery, must have felt like Al Pacino in The Godfather: Just when they thought they were out (of the capital markets doghouse) the bears pull them right back in!

Not so fast Chicken Little. The very next day, famed hedge fund manager John Paulson of Paulson & Co., noted for calling the subprime debacle, said he was banking on big gains from the banking sector, and put his considerable money where his mouth was, buying a big stake in Bank of America(BAC Quote).

Paulson called his shot in classic Babe Ruth-style, predicting that Bank of America would hit a home run over the next two years and double its profits. This call places Paulson at odds not only with Whitney, but also with big hedge funds like SAC Capital and Renaissance Technologies, which both slashed stakes in Bank of America in the third quarter.

Should we all be scratching our heads with such high-profile banking experts at odds with each other?