NEW YORK ( TheStreet) - Bank of America ( BAC) was downgraded by Portales Partners, following a big run up in the stock year to date, according to data released by Bloomberg on Thursday. The downgrade to "hold" from "buy" by Portales analyst Charlie Peabody was actually published on Monday, but has not been widely reported, and was only made available by Bloomberg, which keeps comprehensive data on analyst upgrades and downgrades, on Thursday. A call to Peabody was not returned. According to Bloomberg, his downgrade came as the shares hit $7.97, which is where they closed on Monday. The shares traded lower on Tuesday but have since rebounded and were at $8.17 shortly after noon on Thursday, marking a gain of nearly 47% for the year. Peabody had had a "buy" on Bank of America ever since Sept. 8, 2008, when the shares traded at $34.73. That was one week ahead of the historic Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, from which bank stocks--and the much of the global economy, for that matter, have still not fully recovered. Following Peabody's downgrade, analysts have 12 "buys," 24 "holds" and two "sell" ratings on Bank of America, according to Bloomberg data. -- Written by Dan Freed in New York. Follow this writer on Twitter.
