If you’re an investor in bank stocks, there’s a simple reason you want to consider owning shares of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC): Starting as soon as next year, the nation’s second-biggest bank by assets could be in a position to spend tens of billions of dollars buying back stock.
The only reason Bank of America hasn’t done so until now — though it has been spending a few billion dollars a year on buybacks — is because the Federal Reserve controls how much money banks return to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.