Bank of America Downgrade Parade Now Includes Citigroup

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Bank of America(BAC)was downgraded to "neutral" from "buy" by Citigroup on Tuesday, following the recent run-up in the stock.

"At current levels the risk/reward tradeoff for [Bank of America] is relatively balanced in the near term. Longer term, we believe BAC still offers attractive value as the company addresses its legacy issues, which should drive down the perceived risk in the stock," reads the note from analyst Keith Horowitz

Horowitz argues the 48.38% rally in Bank of America's stock year to date "reflects the market's increased comfort with its capital position." However, he now believes "investor focus will shift to earnings, which have been weak."

Horowitz adds that he "struggle[s] to find value," amid large cap banks, given their recent rally.

"The recent move in the group has been driven by multiple expansion as the market has gotten more comfortable with US economic outlook and is less concerned about Europe, but we think at these levels one needs to see positive EPS revisions to get the stocks to work," Horowitz writes. His only remaining "buy" recommendations are on JPMorgan Chase(JPM) and Goldman Sachs(GS).

Horowitz's downgrade to Bank of America follows one last week by Portales analyst Charles Peabody.

-- Written by Dan Freed in New York. Follow this writer on Twitter.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints