“Revenues grew at a much faster rate than expenses,” Brian Moynihan said Wednesday morning, in the color accompanying a good quarter for Bank of America, where boring is better.

I like that assessment. It’s so… I don’t know, so Moynihan. “How’d you guys do, Brian?” “Oh, no complaints. Sales grew faster than costs.”

The theme for Wall Street results this reporting season is IB, so I’ll start with that, even as NII is obviously what matters at BofA.

Total IB revenue of $2.05 billion was up nearly 45% from the same period a year ago and counted as a huge beat. Consensus was looking for just $1.65 billion.

Debt underwriting had its best quarter in years with $1.1 billion in revenue (versus $858 million expected), while the advisory business brought in $583 million, up by half versus a year ago.

Note that IB beat estimates at BofA during the prior two quarters as well, but as the chart makes clear — and this was evident in results from JPMorgan and Goldman as well — Q3 marked IB’s official “we’re back” moment.

Now to what counts at BofA. NII for the quarter was $15.2 billion ($15.4 billion with the adjustment), better than consensus and up more than 9% for the fastest YoY growth since Q2 of 2023.

As the figure shows, Q3 marked a fifth straight increase on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The bank guided for 8% YoY growth in Q4 for between $15.6 billion and $15.7 billion. I’m no company analyst, but I have to think that’s good enough. And then some.

The bank’s traders did ok. FICC came up (barely) short at $3.08 billion, but the equities guys (and gals) made up for it with a nice beat ($2.27 billion versus $2.08 billion seen). All in all, trading revenue of $5.35 billion beat by a comfortable $350 million.

Running quickly through the rest of the numbers, wealth management revenue matched estimates at $6.3 billion. Comp costs were a little high at $10.52 billion versus $10.44 billion seen. The loss provision and charge-offs were lower than expected at $1.3 billion and $1.37 billion, respectively. Total deposits were $2 trillion, and loans rose 9% to $1.15 trillion. Profit rose 23% YoY and EPS was up by a third versus Q3 of 2024.

You can always find something to nitpick in big bank earnings if that’s your thing, but I gotta tell you: These results from BofA, especially considering the extent to which BofA results tend to be a yawner almost by definition and design, looked pretty damn good and across the board.

Of course that’s not how Moynihan put it. He said, “we drove good operating leverage [and] with continued organic growth, every line of business reported top and bottom-line improvements.”

Then he thanked all of the bank’s “teammates” for a good quarter, fixed himself a plain bagel and read the comics section in the morning paper.