BofA trading revenue up ‘mid-single digits,’ Moynihan says

NEW YORK – Fourth-quarter trading revenue at Bank of America Corp. is on pace to increase from a year earlier, CEO Brian Moynihan said.

“Sales and trading ought to be up mid-single digits from last year,” Moynihan said Wednesday at an investor conference in New York. “Our last year’s fourth quarter was a little bit knocked around.”

In 2014, Bank of America posted $1.74 billion in fourth- quarter sales and trading revenue. That was a 26 percent decline from a year earlier on a slump in fixed-income trading driven by poor credit results.

Wall Street firms have struggled with lower trading revenue for years, cutting costs and jobs amid the decline. Bank of America’s projected results show that it’s possible the worst is behind it. Morgan Stanley’s investment banking and trading head Colm Kelleher said last month that the low point for bond trading has potentially been reached, and this week JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said an expected increase in interest rates could benefit trading businesses next year.

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Moynihan said BofA’s fourth-quarter investment banking revenue is “flattish to slightly up from the third quarter,” adding that “there’s not as much activity.” The firm had $1.33 billion in investment-banking fees last quarter.

Quiet markets have decreased transactional revenue in the bank’s wealth-management division, he said.

Bank of America climbed 0.7 percent to $17.31 at 9:48 a.m. in New York. The shares have slid 3.2 percent this year, compared with a 2.1 percent decline for the 87-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index.

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