Wall Street rose on Thursday, with the S&P 500 hitting a five-year intraday high, as investors were cheered by rosy economic data and better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay.
Bank of America says its fourth-quarter earnings shrank as it cleaned up old problems from its mortgage unit, settling one case with Fannie Mae and another with the government. But the modestly positive results still beat the expectations of analysts.
Bank of America said Wednesday that it narrowly turned a profit from July through September, good enough to beat Wall Street expectations. The bank earned $340 million in the quarter, which works out to a fraction of a penny per share. But financial analysts expected an 11-cent loss.
There's never a dull moment on Wall Street. Next week brings a Xoom-related media event from Verizon and Motorola Mobility, as well as fourth quarter results from Apple and several of the country's biggest financial institutions.
It's been awfully quiet on the earnings front in recent weeks, and there's a reason: This is the time of year when accountants are nailing down the financials for the fiscal quarters that ended in September. Later this week, the conference calls will begin trickling in, and then it will be a deluge of quarterly reports until early November.
"The largest loss in Bank of America's history." That's the sound bite from the bank's second quarter earnings report, which disclosed an $8.8 billion bottom-line loss. But now that BOA is atoning for its mortgage-related sins, there's a chance its stock may be undervalued.
Better-than-expected earnings from General Electric helped lift the Dow and S&P 500. The Nasdaq closed lower after disappointing results from chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. Overall, the week's strong earnings bode well for coming corporate reports.
Fourth-quarter 2010 earnings season ramps up this week. Analysts expect strong results from some big corporate names. And on the heels of last week's big earnings beat from JPMorgan Chase, the financial sector will have plenty more results to peruse this week.
The nation's largest bank reported a third-quarter net loss due to a $10.4 billion goodwill charge. Excluding that, Bank of America's net income of $3.1 billion trounced expectations.
