BAC Downgrade an 'Opportunity to Buy': Brown

The decline in Bank of America's share price makes it a good long-term buying opportunity, Josh Brown of Fusion Analytics said Thursday.

On "Fast Money," he said that one of the first lessons of investing is that valuation downgrades represent opportunities to buy.

"If there's a downgrade based on something else, something structural, that's something else," he said. "If you like the name and you want to be in the sector, they just gave you an opportunity to buy."

Earlier, Credit Suisse downgraded the stock to "neutral" from "outperform," citing valuation around 11 times forward earnings.

By contrast, shares of JPMorgan and Citigroup were trading around 8.5 times earnings.

The downgrade didn't affect Metropolitan Capital Advisors President Karen Finerman's view of Bank of America stock, the biggest gainer in the Dow for 2012.

"It's out of steam for today, but I don't think the fundamental story changes at all," she said. "I think the story is as good here as it was at lower prices."

Trader disclosure: On Jan. 9, 2013, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Karen Finerman is long BAC; Karen Finerman is long AAPL CALL SPREADS; Karen Finerman is long AAPL PUT SPREADS; Karen Finerman is long AAPL; Karen Finerman is long C; Karen Finerman is long JPM; Karen Finerman is long WMT; Karen Finerman is long TGT; Karen Finerman is long MSFT; Karen Finerman is long GOOG; Karen Finerman is long JCP; Karen Finerman is long M; Karen Finerman is long FINL; Karen Finerman is short SPY; Guy Adami is long Cz Guy Adami is long GS;Guy Adami is long AGU; Guy Adami is long MSFT; Guy Adami is long NUE; Guy Adami is long BTU; Josh Brown is long AAPL; Josh Brown is long JPM; Josh Brown is long WFC; Josh Brown is long GDX; Josh Brown is long GLD; Josh Brown is long XLU; Josh Brown is long TLT; Josh Brown is long XLF; Josh Brown is long WMT; Josh Brown is long TGT; Josh Brown is long GOOG; Tim Seymour is long BAC; Tim Seymour is long INTC; Tim Seymour is long SBUX; Dennis Gartman is long CORN; Dennis Gartman is long GOLD; Dennis Gartman is long COPPER; Dennis Gartman is long S&P 500 INDEX; Dennis Gartman is long NAT GAS; Dennis Gartman is short EURO; Dennis Gartman is short YEN; Dennis Gartman is short CRUDE OIL; Dennis Gartman is short US10Y TREASURIES;

For Toni Sacconaghi
Toni Sacconaghi maintains a long position in Seagate Technology (STX); Accounts over which Bernstein and/or their affiliates exercise investment discretion own more than 1% of the outstanding common stock of the following companies HPQ / Hewlett Packard; Bernstein currently makes a market in the following companies DELL / Dell Inc.