70% of Fortune 500 banks with California's Wells Fargo (San Francisco: price, vs.)

[18Montclair]

And in some ways, in on track to becoming the nation's largest bank as the article below states:

[LEFT]Wells (NYSE: WFC) now serves one-third of the nation’s households, 10 percent of its small businesses and 70 percent of the Fortune 500 — all points that CEO John Stumpf was eager to make at this month’s Morgan Stanley Financials Conference.

Wells becoming the nation’s largest bank would be something akin to Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, given how many long viewed Wells as a strong regional bank, sticking to its knitting while others pursued mergers at any price and sought to play on the global stage.

[LEFT]Bankers often dispute how to measure who is bigger. Many look at a bank’s assets, while other say anyone can turbocharge asset growth, at least short-term, through a lot of dumb lending. Others say it’s best to look at market cap, which indicates how investors assess a bank against its rivals..

By that measure, Wells already lands in second place. Wells has a market cap of $171 billion vs. J.P. Morgan Chase’s $187 billion. Bank of America’s market cap stands at $149 billion and Citi’s is $143 billion.

[LEFT]In terms of assets, Wells had $1.26 trillion in assets at the end of last year, while its largest rival, Bank of America, (NYSE: BAC) held $2.27 trillion. Chase (NYSE: JPM) had $2.12 trillion in assets at year-end and Citibank (NYSE: C) had $1.91 trillion.

All three of Wells Fargo’s larger competitors saw assets fall in the last three months of 2010. In contrast, Wells rose by 3 percent. Assets at BofA slipped 3 percent, while Chase’s was down 1 percent and Citi saw assets decline 3.5 percent, according to figures from San Francisco investment bank Stone & Youngberg, research firm SNL Financial and the FDIC.


Read more: Wells Fargo may one day be nation’s largest bank | San Francisco Business Times [/LEFT]

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[mateo45]

Yet another good reason to use your local community bank instead!

Tired of hearing about banks that are "too big to fail"? Well, the key might just be to move your money into smaller, community-oriented ones."
Move Your Money - CBS News Video