Bank of America CEO expects markets revenue to jump in fourth quarter

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said on Wednesday he expects revenue from the bank’s markets business to rise between a high single-digit percentage and 10 per cent in the fourth quarter, while investment banking fees will be broadly flat.

Markets sold off in November as concerns about a bubble in AI stocks and uncertainty about near-term Fed rate cuts stoked nervousness among investors, with indexes seeing the biggest swings since April.

Rival JPMorgan on Tuesday said it expects markets revenue to be up in the low-teens percentages in the fourth quarter.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs US Financial Services Conference, Moynihan said that consumers were in good shape and there was no indication of financial stress.

“All the spending is growing. The credit quality is good,” Moynihan said, adding the bank was seeing charge-offs basically flatten out.

BofA also expects to buy back more of its stock in the fourth quarter.

The US banking regulator overseeing large national banks earlier on Wednesday said the nation’s nine largest firms had in the past placed restrictions on providing financial services to some controversial industries, in a practice commonly described as “debanking.”

Moynihan declined to comment on the OCC debanking report.

In November at the bank’s investor day, Bank of America raised a closely watched profitability target as CEO Moynihan laid out a plan to catch up with Wall Street rivals that includes tech investments and an expansion strategy.

BofA is targeting a 16 per cent to 18 per cent return on tangible common equity - a metric investors use to assess a bank’s performance - in the medium term, compared with its earlier forecast of a mid-teens return, aiming to narrow the gap. REUTERS

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