Typically banks are valued as a multiple of book value.
Sure, markets have been wrong about the accuracy of book value before.
In terms of book value, Barclays remains one of the most lowly rated major banks.
"At the bottom of the Great Depression, U.S. banks tanked at about half of book value".
Fears of a dilutive capital increase have helped send the stock down to just 30 percent of book value.
Bank of America trades at about a third of book value and is looking to get smaller.
"Nonetheless, it is disheartening to know that the firm wiped out about four years of book value growth in one quarter".
Just last month, Entergy bought two nuclear plants owned by the New York Power Authority for about 70percentt of book value.
That was about 85percentt of Prudential's book value; its chief rival, MetLife, which went public nearly two years ago, is trading at 120 percent of book value.
As a result, firms seem reasonably priced as multiple of book value, but "quite expensive" as measured against tangible book value, Ms. Whitney said.
But most analysts ignore one simple, all-encompassing metric: where the banks' shares are trading as a multiple of book value, or assets minus liabilities.
