For Bank of America, There’s a Lot They Need to Prove

Reeling a bit because of the massive fallout that was associated with the bank’s purchase of Merrill Lynch, the Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America, Ken Lewis, should be able to keep the mouths of the critics shut once he shows them the strong numbers they have garnered for this quarter. The past three months had been very painful for this North Carolina-based banking giant. It has been reported that there had been a consistent string of small headaches that are directly associated with the fateful purchase made in the previous year of Merrill Lynch. This also includes a notorious bonus scandal which had been difficult for the company to de-attach themselves from.

More Outside Stressors

While this is all happening, there exists a lot of criticism coming in from their shareholders regarding the price of their stocks. Bank of America’s Management is continuously working very hard in order to placate these investors and convince them that the purchase made in the previous year regarding the lending company Countrywide was indeed a very smart move on their part. The stakes have gone even higher than this, thanks to news on the developments of the peers of Bank of America. It has been reported that Wells Fargo (Fortune 500, WFC), JPMorgan Chase (Fortune 500, JPM), as well as Goldman Sachs (Fortune 500, GS) this quarter have all ended up shattering their profit expectations at the moment. It was even mentioned that Citigroup (Fortune 500, C), a company that had long struggled for an entire year in order to remove itself from big and risky bets made on the housing markets of the United States, had ended up pulling profits that are word one billion and six hundred million dollars this quarter. This was a result that had stunned and surprised the usually unmovable Wall Street.

Analysts’ Bets

Nancy Bush, who is a bank analyst as well as the founder of the company called NAB Research LLC, had written one note for its clients stating that Bank of America must have in its possession similar ingredients during the first quarter. If it is unable to do so, the rest of their clients and shareholders should start being wary. At the moment, a lot of analysts are hedging bets that the Bank of America will try to swing back and return to the blank as soon as reports come in on Monday. This is after they had ended up suffering around one billion and seven hundred and ninety million dollar losses from the previous quarter. At the moment, the current expectations regarding the status of the company require it to report their profits to be around six hundred and fifteen million dollars. This, according to Thomson Reuters, should be at around five cents per share.