Are Banks the New Penny Shares?

Found this insightful (some in the banking industry might say incite-ful!) post by Tony Loton, Financial Author and Publisher commenting in The Motley Fool (under user name lotontech) on "Why We Love Wild Penny Stocks...in a Recession":

"There's a new class of Penny Shares.
Not the small innovative highly
speculative ventures, but the big companies that were until recently regarded as
'safe investments'.
Yes, I'm talking about the Banks - the new penny
shares."

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I think Tony Loton is really on to something here, don't you? Many bank shares are now worth virtually pennies but that hasn't stopped the banks from continuing to raise or add on fees every chance they get on credit cards they issue, and you'd expect their customer services would get better in these tough financial times when they should be doing everything possible to keep the customers they've got, much less add new ones. But all real world evidence from interactions and transactions with banks and other financial institutions seems to point to the exact opposite. Kind of like Superman doing his banking on Bizarro World, the fictional planet made famous in DC Comics, where everything is backwards! The current state of banking finances (with many of the largest financial institutions on the Government bailout dole, at least for now) and the resulting serious drag on bank share prices, must be presenting quite an interesting dilemma and challenge for both individual investors/current shareholders of bank stocks, as well as Institutional buyers of bank and thrift stocks, in terms of what their strategy going forward might be (buy, sell or hold). Choosing the correct path (crystal ball, anyone?) could spell the difference between financial doom or financial gloom but more likely will result in something that falls in between those two extremes. Time will tell ....
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Be sure to check out Tony Loton's fascinating and very informative non-fiction reference book, "Financial Trading Patterns".