Bank of America Reports Slight Profit

Bank of America earnings story updated with changes throughout

• Bank of America reports fourth-quarter profit of $700 million or $.03 a share. Analysts expected $0.02 a share, according to consensus estimates available at Thomson Reuters
• Net revenue came in at $22.6 billion, compared with estimates of $21 billion.
• Bank reported profit of $4.2 billion in 2012 versus $1.4 billion in 2011

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Bank of America (BAC) reported a fourth quarter profit of three cents per share, versus analyst expectations of a two cent gain.

Revenues of $22.6 billion exceeded Thomson Reuters analyst estimates of $21 billion, the bank told CNBC. The bank provided other ways of measuring the revenue number, however, which produced results of $18.9 billion and $19.6 billion.

"We enter 2013 strong and well positioned for further growth," said Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan.

Non-interest expenses fell to $18.36 billion for the quarter and $72.09 billion for the full year, from $18.94 billion and $77.09 billion a year ago.

That was roughly in line with expectations of Credit Suisse analyst Mosche Orenbuch, who estimates annual expenses will reach $59 billion by the end of 2015. Orenbuch downgraded Bank of America to "neutral" from "outperform" on Jan. 9 , arguing the market was discounting significantly faster improvements in efficiency than we would be expecting."

The expenses were slightly higher than had been forecast by Atlantic Equities analyst Richard Staite, who upgraded Bank of America to "overweight" on Oct. 24. Staite had been forecasting $70.7 billion in non-interest expenses on Nov. 8.

Since that time, Bank of America reached mortgage-related settlements with Fannie Mae (FNMA) over mortgage backed securities and with regulators over foreclosure errors. The bank incurred provisions of $5.2 billion related to those settlements, but it could not be determined if those provisions impacted the annual expense figure.

For the full year, the bank posted net income of $4.2 billion, or $0.25 per share, compared to $1.4 billion, or $0.01 per share in 2011. The three cent fourth quarter profit compared to a profit of 15 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Bank of America shares were down 1.78% to $11.56 in pre-market trading.

-- Written by Dan Freed in New York.

Follow @dan_freed

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