Bank of America misses a big options payday, Goldman cashes in

Contrast shows gaps between banks that have recovered from financial crisis and those that haven't

Bank of America Corp.’s top executives were sitting on the right to buy 400,000 shares of the bank’s stock at $53.85, a perk handed out by its board a decade ago.

The problem is, the stock trades at $24.58.

Those stock options expired worthless on Wednesday, a sign of the lingering effects of the financial crisis and the huge gap between banks that have recovered fully from that era and those still far from the targets set during Wall Street’s better times.

Unlike executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., whose options have by and large paid out,