Citigroup/Citibank vs. Wells Fargo vs. Wachovia

Today it was announced that Wells Fargo, not Citigroup, will be buying floundering Wachovia. Just the latest story on Wall Street... Was it inevitable that Wells Fargo would win this battle? I faced the three financial institutions off against each other:



Worldwide, Citigroup/Citibank had the highest Google-popularity, only to be overtaken by the other two in September 2008. Hmm... It looked like Wells Fargo jumped ahead only due to the takeover rumors of Wachovia. The long-term pattern favored Citigroup though. But wait, this was a US event so maybe we need to study only US Google patterns?



Indeed, this time Wells Fargo was the undisputed leader with Citigroup even falling below Wachovia at mid-2005.

Bank of America vs. Citibank vs. Wells Fargo vs. Wachovia vs. JP Morgan

While the US financial system is falling apart at the seams, let's have a look at the banks. I chose the top five online banks ranked by total assets (pre-crisis probably) according to NetValley.com:

1. Bank of America
   
2. JP Morgan
   
3. Citibank
   
4. Wachovia
   
5. Wells Fargo
   

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of citibank in all years
"bank of america" 1.98
citibank 1.00
"wells fargo" 0.96
wachovia 0.68
"jp morgan" 0.16

So the Google-popularity is as follows:

1. Bank of America
   
2. Citibank
   
3. Wells Fargo
   
4. Wachovia
   
5. JP Morgan
   

JP Morgan goes from second to last place and was also the only bank not to have an increasing trend line. Someone better versed in the banking system could probably explain this. I just don't know. Bank of America grew the fastest, increasing its popularity advantage.