Bank of America may be looking to drop longtime CEO Brian Moynihan

On the face of it, Wall Street seems to like Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. Last week, the nation’s second-biggest bank said its earnings fell less than expected, and the media portrayed it as a victory.The stock went up. Ask analysts and investors, and there’s a vague consensus: Hey, the CEO has been there for 15 years.

Let the board grant his wish: Let him run the place for five more — until he’s 70. Inside, however, the troops are getting restless, and for plenty of reasons.Culturally, Moynihan is an odd fit for an outfit that’s based on wheeling and dealing.He’s a lawyer by training — having joined BofA as general counsel from one of its many acquisitions, Boston-based Fleet Financial. Indeed, the CEO brings a lawyer’s hesitancy to the job, according to sources inside the bank.Frustrated staffers point to a plodding management style and aversion to take the right kind of risk, particularly on the trading desk to support big corporate clients and their banking deals. This, they say, is a key reason that BofA — despite its massive balance sheet — remains an also-ran in investment banking, perennially lagging behind the likes of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. It’s also why shares of BofA lag far behind JPMorgan’s and Goldman’s over the past five years in what has been a bull market for finance stocks. “Brian likes to brag that our desk hasn’t had a loss in years,” said one BofA insider.

“That’s true, but if you don’t lose a little supporting clients, you won’t get those big-money banking clients.That’s how we keep losing to Goldman and JPM.” A BofA spokesman had no comment. Since the 2008 financial crisis, trading risk — using the bank’s capital to make market bets — has gotten a bad name and not for totally bad reasons.Trading miscues are one reason the entire financial system tanked, and regulators have since made it difficult to run large, so-called proprietary trades. Of course the roots of the fi...