It’s not just Bear Stearns which is trading below book value. Here are some closing prices from Yahoo Finance:
| Bank | Price/Book |
| Countrywide | 0.19 |
| Bear Stearns | 0.73 |
| Wachovia | 0.74 |
| Citigroup | 0.93 |
| JP Morgan Chase | 1.06 |
| Lehman Brothers | 1.12 |
| Bank of America | 1.15 |
| Morgan Stanley | 1.44 |
| Merrill Lynch | 1.53 |
| Goldman Sachs | 1.60 |
Can someone explain to me why it makes sense for Merrill Lynch to be trading on twice the price-to-book ratio of Bear Stearns?