Analyst Frets Banks' Trading Business

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Bank trading desks have been struggling to make money in recent weeks, largely because of the Greek debt crisis, says Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove.

Bove says executives at more than one bank have told him they are not doing well in trading, and the analyst says he is contemplating cutting earnings estimates for Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) when he returns from vacation next week if the situation does not improve.

The impetus for an upswing, however, may come from the Federal Reserve's decision last week to charge banks a higher rate for emergency loans, Bove says.

He believes people are "freaking out that the Fed is going to raise interest rates," something he thinks won't happen until the end of the year, instead of "recognizing that what we're really dealing with here is a significant statement that the banking industry in the United States is healthy again. They don't need the support of the Federal Reserve."

If and when that realization kicks in, Bove believes it could turn around the trading picture for banks.

Financial stocks were mostly rising in early action on Monday with Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley all moving marginally higher in recent trades.

--Written by Dan Freed in New York.