More Wall Street Hoopla with Bank of America

Bank of America's net off 41%, tops target, Wall Street jumps for joy.

Bank of America Corp., joining the ranks of other U.S. banking giants, experienced a decline in second-quarter profit that nonethelesss topped Wall Street estimates, financial results showed Monday.

BoA reported second-quarter net income fell 41% to $3.41 billion, or 72 cents a share.
The consensus of analysts had been for quarterly earnings of 59 cents a share.

Let's see, 41% less income and this is GOOD news? Oh yeah, it oculd have been worse.

The results included merger and restructuring costs of $212 million on a pretax basis. Bank of America closed on the acqusition of Countrywide Financial, the troubled mortgage lender, on July 1, the first day of the third quarter.

Countrywide, whose results weren't reflected in Bank of America's second-quarter report, had a second-quarter net loss of $2.33 billion.

Bank of America's provision charges increased to $5.83 billion in the latest quarter from $4 billion, while revenue rose 3% to $20.32 billion on expanded net interest yield, loan growth and higher income from service charges, mortgage banking and investment and brokerage services.

Come on people, give us some credit. By simply not including the mess at Countrywide, the books are COOKED.

And, who believes Wall Street and Mr. Paulson anyway.

IMO, get ready for the next leg down later this week when the hype fizzles.

The Best Money Guy