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...

The number of Americans who filed requests for jobless benefits sank by 50,000 last week to 352,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 402,000 from 399,000. The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by a much smaller 3,500 to 379,000. The monthly average is viewed as more accurate because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data, which is especially pronounced in January after the end of the holiday season. Meanwhile, the...

Sales at U.S. retailers increased 0.1% in December to a seasonally adjusted $400.6 billion, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday. Sales rose an upwardly revised 0.4% in November. Details of the December report were mixed. Excluding the 1.5% rise in motor vehicle sales, retail sales fell 0.2%. Economists had expected ex-auto sales to rise 0.3%. Core sales, excluding autos, gasoline and building materials, fell 0.2% in December after a 0.3% gain in November. This is the first drop in core sales since last...