Time to Buy Big Banks? (BAC/C/WFC/JPM)

Bank-bashing has become a national pastime in the last few years (1, 2, 3, 4). From unfair subsidies as too big to fail to unwieldy conglomerations that no one knows how to value, run or even understand, there is no shortage of criticisms for TBTF banks.

Early contrarian investors in 08 such as Bill Miller were trampled by the herd and in retrospect buying way too high. Paulson/BAC and Ackman/C have been similarly hurt trying to time to bottom and inevitably sells at the bottom:

Paulson in BAC 2011

Ackman with Citi in 2012:

So, what is different now that could make banks a buy? I actually won't go into the fundamental reasons because they are common place. At a high level, bac/c are trading at slightly less than 1x tangible book and all are trading ~10x or less "normalized" earnings.

I don't believe fundamentals can be an effective timing tool alone here, so let's look at market psychology. Are flows finally moving into financials?

As such, is now a good time to buy and hold for the next 3-5 yrs (until normalization?)