When banks brave a shakeup, it’s countless times worse than a sugared-up kid rattling coins in a ceramic piggy bank, though both make a most loathsome noise. Those who invested in Bank of America Corp. (ticker: BAC) back in the mid-2000s may still be reeling from a frightful collapse courtesy of the Great Recession’s banking crisis.

This is what the ugliness looked like, just in case you missed it: In mid-November 2006, Bank of America’s stock traded for almost $55 a share, a nice climb of more than 100 percent over the previous 10 years. Yet by the end of February 2009, all those gains were wiped out, and then some. BAC fell to $4, a drop of almost 93 percent in less than 2.5 years. Forget the proverbial bank run: This was a bank run and hide.

Yet Bank of America’s latest earnings report — covering the first quarter and released last week — gives those who’ve dipped a toe in the investment waters since 2009 a faint reason to smile, even if it’s through gritted teeth.

[See: 7 Ways to Tell if a Stock Is a Good Price.]

Yes, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company saw net income dip 13 percent. But the figure falls in line with subterranean expectations — and so BAC’s earnings of 21 cents per share finished 1 cent above the 20 cents analysts projected. Quarterly revenue of $20.9 billion, though off from last year’s $21.42 billion, also beat consensus projections of $20.3 billion.

Here’s the spin Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan put on the numbers: “This quarter, we benefited from good consumer and commercial banking activity,” he says. “Our business segments earned $4.5 billion, up 16 percent from the year-ago quarter. … [and] despite volatile markets, global markets business produced solid earnings.” Translation: Global sales and trading revenue fell 16 percent.

Bank of America isn’t the biggest bank in the world — that distinction boils down to a neck-in-neck competition between Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), with a market cap of $253.7 billion, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s $230 billion.

But investment analysts camp on the positive side, albeit with a substantial portion stuck on the fence. Among 20 firms surveyed (running the gamut from Edward D. Jones & Co. to Wells Fargo), 12 label BAC stock as a “strong buy,” with four each recommending a “buy” and a “hold.”

What’s more, Bank of America has plenty of legitimate reasons to cite for its overall doldrums, ranging from the price slump in energy (where it does a lot of business) to ever-present turmoil in Chinese markets. To put things in perspective, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China — more than 50 percent larger — has seen its stock drop 31 percent over the last year. BAC, by comparison, is down 11 percent.

[Read: 5 Signs Your Dividend Is Doomed.]

Perhaps it’s a simple case of a falling tide sinking all boats. At any rate, it’s cold comfort when compared to Bank of America’s recession era woes, which piled high enough to fill a bank vault.

In September 2011, BAC shook up its upper management, in large part stemming from its acquisition of Countrywide Financial in 2008. The deal amounted to a $2.5 billion train wreck that some called the worst acquisition in banking history.

Though Countrywide’s sub-prime home loan shenanigans predated the Bank of America deal, what was seen as an opportunity injured the bank’s reputation and cost dearly. By 2014, Bank of America’s mortgage business losses had passed the $50 billion mark; some whispered that the acquisition stemmed from a sweetheart deal between two chummy CEOs: Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo and BAC’s Ken Lewis.

At the time, David A. Geracioti, the editor in chief of REP. magazine, commented: “Basically all the mortgages that Countrywide produced from 2004 to 2007 were excrement.”

Not that Bank of America was exactly waste-free, either. In late 2011, the Federal Housing Finance Agency sued Bank of America, Countrywide and BAC’s Merrill Lynch & Co. for violations of federal securities laws in the sale of mortgage-backed securities. That suit was settled in 2014 for an eye-popping $9.3 billion.

Spring ahead to 2016, when Moynihan — perhaps tapping his skills as a former collegiate rugby player — has largely barreled through the mess Lewis left behind when he retired in 2009. But his work isn’t done yet: Just a day before the earnings report, government regulators said BAC needs to fix deficiencies in its bankruptcy plans that don’t rely on taxpayer funds. Stricter regulations and capital requirement limits hang in the balance.

“It’s eight years after the financial crisis and all big banks, albeit bigger, are under much tighter scrutiny,” says K.C. Ma, director of the George Investments Institute at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. “We still have on average one bank closed every day just as in the last 60 years. Any surviving banks need to be big enough to get access to the public capital market in time of confidence crisis, so a taxpayers’ bailout like 2008 won’t happen again.”

Bank of America, along with four other large banks, has been ordered to provide new resolution plans by Oct. 1 that cover two areas. First, it must show that it has solid governance mechanisms. Also, the bank must provide acceptable models and processes for estimating and maintaining sufficient liquidity.

Neither are issues Bank of America can dodge, even if you take the cynic’s view that big banks still have a crafty, Teflon-like power to slip past government enforcers.

[Read: How to Invest in the Internet of Things.]

“For the past decade, Bank of America has been known not to be run well,” Ma says. “It continues to generate subpar profitability and it would have been de facto failed during the financial crisis if not for the assistance of the federal government.”

That noted, the current interest rate climate has created favorable conditions for banking stocks. After all, when interest rates rise, banks generally see higher revenues and earnings. But as those hikes proceed at sloth-slow speed, it won’t exactly be a feeding frenzy for Bank of America and its behemoth-banking brethren.

So, while Bank of America once fell under the dubious, recession-era category of “too big to fail,” it now finds itself in the good niche of “big enough to succeed” — provided, that is, if tested shareholders and government watchdogs don’t declare “enough is enough.”

More from U.S. News

The 10 Best ETFs for Value Investors

7 Stocks That Will Ruin Your Portfolio

9 Hot Dividend Stocks for 2016

Bank of America: The Balancing Act for BAC Stock originally appeared on usnews.com