Brian Moynihan New CEO of BofA- Who Cares?

Late last week's business news was abuzz with BofA's selection of Brian Moynihan to replace Ken Lewis.

Really, who cares?

Look at the nearby chart of major surviving US bank equities since the late 1980s versus the S&P500 Index.

For all of Hugh McColl's acquisitions, and Ken Lewis' continuation of that approach, the average investor would have been much better off simply holding the index.

This isn't an isolated phenomenon. Chase and Citigroup are in the same boat. Only Wells Fargo, for years truly primarily a consumer and asset management bank, broke with the pattern.

Even since 2005, almost a full four years ago, the pattern holds. Wells about equalled the index, while the other three fell by more.

Moynihan made some forgettable comments about leaving the vaunted BofA business model intact.

Again, who cares? The bank has been stuck in underperformance mode for decades. Moynihan is just the latest caretaker of a bank so large as to impede its own ability to offer reasons to own it, instead of the S&P.

It's very unlikely Moynihan will do anything to change BofA's historic equity price trajectory. Especially when he's announced he doesn't plan to do anything significantly different.

Unless these large bank CEOs do something horrendously bad, such as, oh, buying a failing mortgage bank or retail brokerage, the best they can tend to do is tread water below the S&P's performance level.

I doubt Moynihan will be any different during his term as CEO of BofA.