Brian Moynihan, like Jamie Dimon, is bullish on the US economy. He said as much on Wednesday, when Bank of America turned in a decent set of results.
Consumers and businesses are resilient, Moynihan remarked, adding that America’s second-largest bank expects the world’s first-largest economy to keep growing in 2026.
Starting with what matters most at BofA, net interest income for Q4 was $15.75 billion, easily ahead of the $15.48 billion consensus. With the adjustment, it was $15.90 billion.
Q4 marked the fifth straight quarter during with NII posted a YoY gain and the second straight quarter during which that gain exceeded 9%.
That’ll work, to put it colloquially. The bank said NII growth should be 7% in Q1, and between 5% and 7% for the full year 2026. I doubt anyone’s going to complain about that forecast.
In IB, total revenue of $1.67 billion narrowly beat, even as debt underwriting decelerated sharply (as it did at JPMorgan).
Recall that BofA’s investment bankers were coming off their best quarter in years, as illustrated above. Advisory was strong in Q4, but both debt and equity underwriting slowed.
The bank’s traders did ok. FICC came up a little short for the second straight quarter at $2.52 billion against $2.62 billion seen. As was the case in Q3, the equities guys (and gals) made up for it with a decent beat: $2.02 billion versus $1.89 billion expected. All in all, trading revenue of $4.53 billion beat by a comfortable $200 million.
Running quickly through the rest of the numbers, wealth management revenue beat at $6.62 billion. Comp costs were a little high at $10.60 billion versus $10.55 billion seen. The loss provision and charge-offs were (much) lower than expected at $1.31 billion and $1.29 billion, respectively. Total deposits were $2.02 trillion and loans rose 9% to $1.17 trillion.
Profit jumped 13% YoY and EPS was up by 19% versus Q4 of 2024. Revenue (net of interest expense, obviously) was $28.37 billion, comfortably better than the $27.78 billion consensus.
What can you say? “Large numbers.” Moynihan was his usual understated self. “We improved returns YoY for both the full year and the quarter,” he said. (Thanks, Brian, that’ll be all for today.)
