Earnings News: Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC)

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) on Wednesday reported fiscal fourth-quarter profit of $3.44 billion, or 29 cents per share, compared with a profit of $732 million, or 3 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 15 percent to $21.49 billion.The bank’s results topped forecasts as Wall Street had expected BofA to issue quarterly earnings of 26 cents a share on revenue of $21.24 billion, according to analysts polled by Reuters.For the previous quarter, Bank of America said period-end consolidated deposit balances rose $14 billion to a record $1.12 trillion, while period-end loan balances increased $20 billion to $928 billion. In addition, combined debit and consumer credit card spending rose 4.0 percent to $123 billion.For the year ended December 31, 2013, Bank of America said net income rose to $11.4 billion, or 90 cents per diluted share, from $4.2 billion, or 25 cents per diluted share, in 2012. Revenue, net of interest expense, on an FTE basisA rose 7 percent to $89.8 billion.In addition, the bank highlighted that average deposit balances for the quarter of $528.8 billion increased $44.7 billion, or 9 percent, from the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, the number of active mobile banking customers increased 20 percent from the year-ago quarter to 14.4 million. Total Corporate U.S. Consumer Credit Card (including balances in GWIM) retail spending per average active account increased 6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012.On Wednesday, shares of Bank of America rose 2.39 percent to $17.17 in afternoon trading.The Dow Jones industrial average rose 120.79 points or 0.74 percent, to 16,494.65. The S&P 500 Index gained 9.77 points or 0.53 percent, to 1,848.65. The Nasdaq Composite added 28.84 points or 0.69 percent, to 4,211.81.