Bank of America Corp(NYSE:BAC): The biggest Loser on the DOW on Tuesday

Bank of America Corp(NYSE:BAC) is the biggest loser on the DOW Tuesday as the stock was downgraded by analyst at Robert Baird after the recent rally.The firm reduced their investment rating on the stock to "neutral" from "outperform." However, the firm increased 2012 EPS expectations to 65 cents a share, or about $6.5 billion from 50 cents, primarily due to expectations of a strong first quarter.Robert Baird argued that the bank needs to show stronger earnings potential to continue its outperformance. "We attribute the majority of the stock's outperformance to the notable improvement in capital levels," George stated in his report.

So far this year, the stock has outperformed the broader market with a gain of about 80% as compared to a 12% rise on Standard & Poor's 500 index.However, the stock is still about 28% over the past one year. The stock had made a 52-week low of $4.92 in mid December. Since then, the stock started to move higher smoothly and shares have doubled from the lows.In March, the stock has jumped over 22% after bank passed the Federal Reserve's stress earlier this month, which would allow the bank to pay dividend or repurchase of shares.

Recently there were rumors that the bank may be issuing additional equity in a secondary offering and the stock was hammered down. But, the same day the bank confirmed that it has no intention of issuing additional equity shares.
The last year was not a good one for the bank as the stock had been plummeting on fears that the bank a might need to issue more common stock to boost its capital base weighed. But, those fears were vanished in January after the bank reported higher-than-expected capital ratios in January following the sale of assets and a swap that exchanged common stock for preferred stock held by investors.