Bank of America Corp., the Charlotte, N.C., banking firm, swung to a fourth-quarter profit on 11% higher revenue. Net income was $1.58 billion, or 15 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $1.57 billion, or 16 cents, in the year-earlier period. Total revenue reached $24.89 billion from $22.4 billion. A survey of analysts by FactSet Research produced a consensus estimate of 22 cents a share of profit on $23.74 billion of revenue. Within the total revenue, the revenue from interest on loans fell 14% to $10.7 billion. The provision for possible losses on bad loans fell 43% to $2.93 billion. The tier 1 capital ratio reached 9.86% from 8.6% a year earlier.
Bank of America’s surprise
