NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 6, 2017 / The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its best trading day in 2017 as bank stocks surged on the potential of lower financial regulations. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 0.94 percent to close at 20,071.46, while the S&P 500 gained 0.73 percent to close at 2,297.42. On Friday, President Trump signed executive orders for a review of the Dodd-Frank Act, which was put in place to tighten regulation on financial institutions following the 2008 financial crisis, and to halt an Obama-era "fiduciary rule". The SPDR KBW Bank ETF spiked 2.53 percent on Friday.

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"We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, who have nice businesses who can't borrow money. They just can't get any money because the banks just won't let them borrow, because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank," President Trump said Friday at a meeting Friday before signing the orders.

"Americans are going to have better choices and Americans are going to have better products because we're not going to burden the banks with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of regulatory costs every year," said Gary Cohn, White House National Economic Council, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "The banks are going to be able to price product more efficiently and more effectively to consumers."

Let's Take a Closer Look at Friday's Major Benefactors

Bank of America's shares gained 2.51 percent to close at $23.29 a share Friday. The stock traded between $22.95 and $23.35 on volume of 116.04 million shares traded. The company reported earnings per share of $0.40 on revenue of $19.99 billion, mainly due to improvement in credit quality and continued cost cutting. Analyst's expectations had called for adjusted earnings per share of $0.38 on revenue of $20.76 billion, according to data from Bloomberg. Reported expenses for fourth quarter fell 6 percent, more than expected, to $13.2 billion, due to declines in compensation and data-processing costs. The company has reported revenue of $10.3 billion net interest income and expects net interest income to increase by $600 million in first quarter of 2017, assuming current level of interest rates. Bank of America announced that it would increase its stock-buyback program to $4.3 billion from $2.5 billion for the first half of 2017.

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Citigroup shares gained 3.18 percent to close at $57.76 a share Friday. The stock traded between $56.59 and $57.88 on volume of 21.40 million shares traded. The company reported earnings of $3.57 billion, or $1.14 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2016, compared to $3.34 billion, or $1.02 per share, a year ago. Revenues for the quarter totaled $17.012 billion, a decrease of 8.0 percent year-over-year. The Company has explained that drop in revenue was mainly due to absence of net gains on asset sales in Citi Holdings. Consensus analyst estimates had called for earnings of $1.12 a share on revenue of $17.3 billion, according to analysts polled by Reuters.

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Today's Research Coverage Includes:

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC)

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C)

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