
Bank of America Shares Defy WikiLeaks Reports
NEW YORK (
) --
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Report
shares opened higher on Wednesday despite a flurry of negative news reports.
Several of them related to WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange, has said he has major revelations that may cause the head of a large U.S. bank to resign. There has been widespread speculation, drawing on earlier comments made by Assange, that Bank of America is Assange's target.
Indeed, the bank itself appears to be girding for trouble from Wikileaks, as the
Charlotte Observer
cites an anonymous bank employee who says he can't access gmail on his company-issued laptop due to stepped up security measures.
Bank of America has also blocked payments to WikiLeaks, it announced Friday, and has been reportedly defensively registering domain names like Brianmoynihansucks.com and brianmoynihanblows.com, according to
Domain Name Wire
.
Some news organizations interpreted a
Times of London
with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as providing confirmation of widespread suspicions that the bank he has been saying he will expose is indeed Bank of America.
However,
Forbes
blogger Andy Greenberg
shot down those interpretations
.
Adding to Bank of America's troubles was a report in
The New York Times
accusing Bank of America and
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM) - Get Report
, or contractors they employ, of illegally breaking into people's homes.
Despite the reports, shares of JPMorgan and Bank of America opened higher on Wednesday, outpacing other big banks like
Citigroup
(C) - Get Report
,
Wells Fargo
(WFC) - Get Report
,
US Bancorp
(USB) - Get Report
,
PNC Financial
(PNC) - Get Report
and
Bank of New York Mellon
(BK) - Get Report
.
--
Written by Dan Freed in New York
.
Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks.









