Mind the Gap: The Next Market Downdraft Will See Bank of America Trade With a 4 Handle (BAC)

The stock is currently at $5.09 down 3.14% after setting a 52-week (actually longer but I'm too lazy to look) low of $5.03 earlier today.
First up, What's Trading says option buyers are bullish:

Bank of America (BAC) fell to a 52-week low of $5.1 this morning, but has since battled back and is now down just a penny to $5.25 per share. Interesting trade in the bank this morning is a 39000-contract block of Jan 6 calls bought for 28 cents per contract. 57,570 now traded, making it today’s most actively traded options contract. 14,560 Dec 6 calls traded on the bank as well. Total volume through the first hour is 90K calls/49K puts and implied volatility in BAC options is steady at 79 percent.

And a repost of a drum we started beating on August 4th and highlighted again on October 3rd:

Just a Reminder on Bank of America: Mind the Gap (BAC)

Stocks are smarter than fund managers.
And investors, brokers, analysts, traders etc.
With the stock at $5.68, down 44 cents (7.27%) I'm reposting  from August 4:
Remember "Is Bank of America At Risk of a Death Spiral? (BAC)"

For cryin' out loud it was only July 21st when we posted it.
Here's the link.

I bring this up because, with the stock down 7.4% to $8.88 today I was asked "How far can it drop?"
Houston we may have a problem.
Here's the chart for March 2009: 

BigCharts

If I may direct your attention attention to the bars for the 9th and 10th there is a gap where the stock closed at $3.75 on the 9th and opened at $4.35 on the 10th.
That gap has never been filled.

I had sworn to myself that I would not ever speak of this, it sounded outlandish even to me.
Not all gaps fill. As I said in October '09's "Equities: Well We Filled the Gap in the S&P 500 Chart"

It is almost uncanny how many times a stock or index makes a gap up and then comes back to fill the gap before resuming the move. In this case S&P 1073 or thereabouts.

On the other hand, I knew an old-timer who spent much of the eighties waiting for the Dow Joneses to fill a gap in the high 500's that dated from 1974....

And it may not fill on this go-around.
We are expecting the ultimate market bottom in 3-4 years, it may be the next big bear before BAC see's $4.
But now you know.