BofA’s Moynihan says traders profited most days during quarter

BANK OF AMERICA CORP. CEO BRIAN T. MOYNIHAN says that the bank's trading operations helped boost profits in the fourth quarter and that that has been the case through a number of quarters. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/ANDREW HARRER
BANK OF AMERICA CORP. CEO BRIAN T. MOYNIHAN says that the bank's trading operations helped boost profits in the fourth quarter and that that has been the case through a number of quarters. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/ANDREW HARRER

DAVOS, Switzerland – Bank of America Corp. CEO Brian T. Moynihan said trading operations were profitable almost every day last quarter as the lender helped clients adjust to the prospect of higher interest rates.

“I think we made money on every trading day except for two or three,” Moynihan said Tuesday during a Bloomberg Television interview in Davos, Switzerland, with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. “Quarter after quarter, that’s been true. It’s because it’s a client business.”

Bank of America, the second-biggest U.S. lender, is trading near a three-year high after reporting last week that fourth-quarter profit quadrupled. The company posted a 19 percent jump in trading revenue in the period, making it the only major U.S. investment bank to report an increase.

Moynihan, 54, has spent his four years atop Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America resolving disputes tied to shoddy home loans and foreclosures, mostly from the 2008 takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp. that predated his tenure as CEO.

- Advertisement -

Moynihan said today that the firm has done substantial work in settling matters related to the financial crisis and has boosted compliance efforts to ensure mistakes aren’t repeated. Growth in the bank’s underlying businesses is starting to show as legacy issues drop off, he said.

“As we continue the compliance and risk infrastructure that we’ve been building on and investing in heavily, I think that you won’t find those types of things repeat, but we are still in the process of cleaning it up,” he said.

No posts to display