UPDATE: Bove:Big FDIC Assessment Coming;Bank Shares Too High

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. assessments could end up consuming 25% of banks' 2010 pretax income, analyst Dick Bove said Sunday, as the agency struggles with another 150 to 200 bank failures before the current financial crisis is over.

The Rochdale Securities analyst, in saying Thursday's expected release of FDIC figures will show $2.6 billion in assessments, painted a dark outlook for federal deposit insurance needs in a note to clients.

Banks may end up paying $11 billion in normal assessments plus another $11 billion in special assessments in 2010, he said, funds that "must come from healthy banks."

The FDIC - which assesses those fees to provide guarantees on deposits - may be forced to seek the assistance of foreign banks and private-equity funds to "cleanse the American banking system," Bove said.

Bove's prediction that 150 to 200 more banks may fail is consistent with his long-standing view that failures will be widespread. He said he is surprised that more banks than the 25 last year and 81 to date this year have not failed in the current crisis. But the FDIC prediction and the dark outlook for earnings is a new note for the analyst.

In a separate note Saturday, Bove also took a shot at enthusiasm for bank stocks, saying many today are "very rich relative to historical parameters" because investors are rushing to buy the hardest-hit among them.

The result is that some of the stocks that surged in July and August now trade at higher multiples of future earnings than the multiples on current earnings that obtained during the 2002-06 boom, Bove said.

One large bank that appears to have a hefty premium in its shares now is Capital One Financial Corp. (COF), whose stock rose 66.7% from June 30 to Aug. 21 even though its 2011 earnings are expected to drop nearly 58% from 2007 levels.

Capital One officials were not immediately available to comment on that assessment.

Citigroup (C) is another bank trading at a hefty premium, by Bove's analysis, at 16.8 times its forecast 2011 earnings, compared to an average 13.3 over 2002-06.

Citigroup officials declined to comment.

Other banks' price-to-earnings ratios are well under the 2002-06 average. They included giants such as Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC).

On the whole, though, Bove said investors should stop running into the hardest-hit banks in hopes of riding a big turnaround in a recovery.

"Investors in general should be buying the high quality banks not the ones perceived to be offering the biggest 'bang for the buck,'" he wrote.

"Those companies with the least chance of recapturing their 2007 earnings peak in the next two years performed best in the recent bank stock rally."

- By Brendan Conway, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]