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Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) Stock

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Thanks to the Fed, It's All Proceeding According to "The Plan"

By , Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning • @ShahGilani_TW -

If you've been reading the headlines, you know Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) is in trouble. It could be in really big trouble.

Thank goodness they're so big!

Thank goodness all the big banks in America are all much bigger now than they were a few years ago, before the financial crisis brought them to their knees, by their own doing, of course.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Yeah, it's all part of "The Plan" to eliminate pesky banking competition.

Let me show you how nicely it's working...

The Fed's 100-Year Plan

The Plan was hatched a long time ago. Back in 1913, as a matter of fact.

That's when Congress devised the Federal Reserve System for eliminating competition and making sure U.S. taxpayers would be the lender of last resort to big bankers.

It has taken a while, 100 years, in fact. But it is working.

The first sign it was working came in the 1980s and '90s, when the savings and loans got into serious trouble playing the greed game.

They weren't covered by the Federal Reserve System. So they were shut down, or rolled up by government-backed insiders (Congress' puppet-masters), and later sold to big banks for sweet profits.

Anyway, they're gone. No more pesky competition from S&L associations.

Now look who's next on the chopping block...



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Stock Market Today: This Stock's Dip Could Be Promising

By , Money Morning -

The stock market today opened flat as positive housing data was weighed down by somewhat mixed earnings.

Here's our market roundup and one stock that's soaring today.

  • Housing starts reach four-year high- The housing market continues to show signs of recovery as the rate of home building in September grew to levels not seen since July 2008. Housing starts rose to an annual pace of 872,000 homes, up 15% from August. Builders also filed for permits at an annual rate of 894,000 homes, up 11.6% from last month and 45.1% year-over-year. Demand for housing will continue to be helped by the Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates near historic levels and the implementation of QE3. Housing prices have rebounded from their nadirs in part because foreclosures are at five-year lows and because the number of U.S. households grew 2% in 2011, its largest rise in 10 years. "There is going to be a continued housing recovery over the next few years," said Larry Seay, chief financial officer at Meritage Homes Corp. (NYSE: MTH) in Scottsdale, AZ, at an investor conference. "Pent-up demand that has built up from people deferring household formation is going to help buoy the recovery. High affordability not only with house prices being very low, but also interest rates being as low as they've been in decades, and all that translating into an improved buyer confidence."
  • Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) delivers a mixed bag- Charlotte, NC-based Bank of America barley managed to squeeze out a profit for the third quarter after $1.6 billion in litigation charges ate away at its earnings. The financial giant earned $340 million - a little more than zero cents per share. That was better than analysts' average estimate of a loss of 7 cents per share, but well below last year's third-quarter profit of $6.2 billion, or 56 cents per share. Revenue also fell, slumping to $20.4 billion from $28.5 billion a year ago, missing expectations. A day after Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit abruptly resigned, Bank of America's CEO Brian Moynihan sounded confident about his bank's future. "We are doing more business with our customers and clients, deposits are up, mortgage originations are up," he said. "Our strategy is taking hold even as we work through a challenging economy and continue to clean up legacy issues." BAC stock is up 0.6% in early trading.
Here's one stock that beat earnings and is poised for future success.

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Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) May Never Fully Recover

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has been working hard to regain its profitability and stature, but a better-than-expected earnings report isn't enough.

On Thursday the company reported earnings of 3 cents a share. Revenue came in light at $22.28 billion.

Although analysts were looking for 12 cents a share, several weighed in saying that a $4.8 billion charge known as debt valuation adjustment (DVA) complicated the earnings report. Some say BofA actually beat core earnings expectations.

Evercore analyst Andrew Marquardt wrote, "Our initial view of core is closer to 26 cents."

Return on average equity of 11.05% beat fourth-quarter results, but was less than the 15.41% return the bank posted for the first quarter a year ago. BAC succeeded in reducing its credit-loss provisions to $2.42 billion from $3.81 billion in the fourth quarter.

"You had very favorable tailwinds in the fixed-income markets and so trading revenues are very strong for this universe right now," Charles Peabody, an analyst at Portales Partners LLC in New York, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. "There's no question the earnings that are being reported are very good -- the question is the sustainability."

Despite beating estimates with its first-quarter earnings, BofA has struggled more than its counterparts in the wake of the financial crisis. The damage may be too much to allow the bank to grow to as big as it once was.



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Here is What's Wrong With Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)

By , Chief Investment Strategist, Money Map Report -


If you have a mortgage with Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and want to refinance, don't bother.

You are not worth the bank's time. Or at least I wasn't.

That's what I learned first-hand last week when I called Bank of America to refinance a home mortgage I've had with them for years.

My jaw practically hit the floor when Alejandro from BofA's mortgage department told me this over the phone.

"Because of excessively high demand," Alejandro said, "we can't accept your refinancing application. But we can take a reservation and have an agent call you in 90 to 120 days."

Huh?...You can't be serious.

I really have to wait three or four months to even apply for a lower interest rate when I've been an existing customer for years?

Yeah, I bet, I thought to myself...

They'll call me when interest rates are much higher or when BofA works its way through its part of the $25 billion robo-signing settlement reached over its abuses in the foreclosure process.

Of course, all of this is after BofA received $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funding.

And after they reportedly shifted the risks associated with $75 trillion in derivatives from its investment banking and trading units to BofA's depository arm, a unit flush with FDIC-insured deposits.

But that is another story for another day.

How Bank of America Treats its Customers

Suspecting something wasn't quite right, I made a second call to BofA to inquire about a new loan.

Not ten minutes later I was put through immediately to an underwriter who was all too happy to help a new, unknown prospect - a.k.a. me - take on more debt. Imagine that.

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Mortgage Settlement Just the Start of Trouble for Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Friends

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning -

The biggest U.S. mortgage lenders, including Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), finally reached a $25 billion mortgage settlement to help homeowners - but the banks still face years of legal battles and billions of dollars in costs.

The provisions to the mortgage settlement include:

  • $5 billion total in cash penalties, payable to borrowers, states, and the federal government.
  • $20 billion in additional aid, through reducing homeowners' loan balances, and refinancing for underwater homeowners who are current on their loans.
Bank of America will pay an additional $1 billion to settle claims that it inflated appraisal prices from 2003-2009.

The multi-billion dollar mortgage settlement ends state and federal investigations into improper foreclosure procedures (like robo-signing), but banks can still get hit with criminal enforcement actions due to lending practices and mortgage-related securities.

"It's a big check with narrow immunity," Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets and a former Federal Reserve examiner, told Bloomberg News. "You get the state attorneys general off your back, but you're not getting immunity from securitizations, which could come with their own steep cost down the road."

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Money Morning Mailbag: Tobin Tax the Only Solution to Problems Posed by High Frequency Trading

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning -

An episode of the television news program "60 Minutes" that aired Oct. 10 highlighted investors' fears over the growing trend of high frequency trading (HFT) run by a world of "supercomputers."

The "60 Minutes" piece prompted this letter from a reader wondering if the technological shift means it's time to readjust investment strategy.

Sunday night on "60 Minutes" they had a story about high-speed computers that are out-trading humans. Is it time to refocus on the world stage and find tangible rather than paper investments to put your money in? A partnership in a retail or manufacturing venue surely is more transparent than the stock market.

--Roman

Money Morning has been examining the effects of high frequency trading for years. In August 2009 Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson said high frequency trading systems were front-running the market.

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De-Coupling Back in Vogue as Emerging Economies Outshine the U.S.

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

While the U.S. economy is struggling to break its slump, growth remains strong in other places around the world - so strong, in fact, that analysts are breaking out a term that's spend much of the past two years on the shelf: De-coupling.

U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will meandered along with a meager 1.7% expansion in the second quarter and is expected to grow by less than 2% for the full year.

Meanwhile, Brazil's GDP is on pace to expand by 7.5%, India's economy is projected to grow by 8.5% and China's economy is expected to grow by 9.5% this year.

Emerging market economies are moving ahead at such a brisk rate that their combined GDP will be bigger than developed countries by 2015, according to the World Bank.

Now, the biggest Wall Street firms - including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE ADR: CS) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) - are betting that the global economy has de-coupled from the United States, and will shake off any slowdown in the world's largest economy.

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Six Stocks That Should be on Every Investor's 'Don't Buy' List

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

With more than 8,790 publicly traded stocks on U.S. exchanges and another 7,000 or so listed on the OTC Bulletin Board and the pink sheets, it's not particularly difficult to find stocks you wouldn't want to buy. It's not even that hard to find stocks with numbers so bad they're good short-sale candidates.

What's really hard is recognizing companies whose shares seem like they might be bargains, but that actually have subtle or hidden problems. These stocks truly belong your DO NOT BUY list.

A good example is Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC). The financial sector was among the leaders as the market rallied from its July lows, but BAC didn't add much to the advance. In fact, after a brief bounce, it tumbled to a 12-month low of $12.18 on August 30 - a far cry from its October 2007 high of $52.71. Still, it looks like the stock built a solid technical base during the early September market upsurge and could be poised for a breakout if its earnings, due out Oct. 20, beat expectations.

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