A substantial trend reversal is taking place with Bank of America (BAC). This company's stock has been a complete dog for much of 2010. Year-to-date, BAC has lost 15%. In the last five trading days, however, the shares have surged almost 8%. This could be just the beginning of a much larger move.

Noted banking analyst Dick Bove has been pounding the table on BAC for some time now. He views the current valuation as ridiculous and says that even if the company went bankrupt, the stock would still be worth $15 due to the cash on the balance sheets. Bank of America shares are trading at a price/book ratio of 0.60.

Today was a quiet economic day yet stocks managed to find some footing despite two miserable selling sessions in the last two trading days. Gold hit a record close as investors continue to look for safe havens, and that is also keeping a lid on bond yields in Treasuries.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,939.23 +122.74 (1.25%)
S&P 500 1,062.02 +11.55 (1.10%)
Nasdaq 2,170.57 -3.33 (-0.15%)

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Today's markets started out weak as overseas markets were weak ahead of our open. There was no economic news to digest and the U.S. Health Care Reform bill passage by the House of Representatives took some blame, but the health care stocks themselves showed that this was not generally the case. Maybe that is arguable, maybe it is just politics. As it turns out, the losses rapidly turned into gains and stocks were suddenly up most of the day. There were also very few earnings to digest.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,797.00 +55.02 (0.51%)
S&P 500 1,165.81 +5.91 (0.51%)
Nasdaq 2,395.40 +20.99 (0.88%)

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In the past, I've covered Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove's inane ramblings about how fantastically awesome Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis is. Last month he called Mr. Lewis "phenomenally good" and his notes to investors are beginning to have more in common with 12-year old girls' Valentines to Zac Efron than conventional research.

But he has outdone himself this time. While Bank of America's chairman of the board goes on a cruise instead of devoting all his energy to finding a successor, Mr. Bove has found the solution to replacing Ken Lewis: "In sum, Mr. Lewis was a key architect in the creation and management of Bank of America. He knows this company better than anyone else and he knows how to operate it," Bove wrote in a research note issued this morning. "At this point in the company's history, this is the type of leader needed. Convincing him to return would be the biggest morale builder that management could get."

Today started out higher for stocks, but then the US Peso came into play. Shares have been the beneficiary of a weakening dollar, but then the currency bears started to cover the position. There is talk that some foreign central banks intervened to halt the rise of their own currencies, although whether or not that was the case may not be known.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,867.81 -104.37 (-1.05%)
S&P 500 1,066.98 -12.62 (-1.17%)
Nasdaq 2,141.85 -12.62 (-0.59%)

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Today was a negative market from the start of trading, and the economic data just confirmed the selling, as hunting for green shoots looked more like hunting for four-leaf clovers. It seems that those analysts and economists saying that the market has risen too far and too fast are getting some more ears than in recent weeks.

The housing data showed a dip after two months of rising data, and the New York Empire Manufacturing data came in weaker than expected. Even the Iran turmoil after the election failed to rally oil. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,613.04 -186.22 (-2.12%)
S&P 500 923.81 -22.40 (-2.37%)
Nasdaq 1,816.38 -42.42 (-2.28%)

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This week couldn't really be described as anything short of "volatile as hell." Up Huge, Down Huge, Up Huge! Today was also quadruple witching with options and futures expiration, adding to the volatility. Maybe the market is bottoming and maybe it isn't. Today we had initial weekly jobless claims come in at 378,000, which was slightly more jobless claims than were expected. We also saw February's Leading Economic Indicators come in at -0.3%, which was in-line with estimates and probably a relief it wasn't worse considering it was February data. one bright spot, or less bad spot, was Philly Fed Manufacturing, which posted a slightly better than expected reading of -17.4 for February.

Perhaps the financials should all be thanking Punk Zeigel's Dick Bove who came out again pounding the table this morning calling the situation as "the financial sector recovery is underway." But the real gift can be tied to the Fed as we saw the Fed expand its "allowable securities" that can be turned into treasuries via 28-day swaps to get the garbage off the books. Commodities closed lower on the de-leveraging: Oil closed down again by $0.95 at $101.59 at and even gold traded at $910.10 down $35.20 per ounce late in the day. You can see the market index unofficial closes below:

• DJIA 12,366.04 (+266.38; +2.20%)
• NASDAQ 2,258.11 (+48.15; +2.18%)
• S&P500 1,329.88 (+31.46; +2.42%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.328% (-0.034%)
• Major list of 52-week lows.