Bank of America joined Wells Fargo, Citigroup and a handful of other bank that reported better than expected earnings for the second quarter. It posted a gain of 72 cents per share against expectations of about 50 cents per share. Of key interest, the bank announced the Countrywide deal will start adding to the bottom line this year and that cost savings will be higher than anticipated. Credit quality, however, continued to weaken. The bank took $3.62 billion in charges, and boosted its reserves against bad credits of $2.21 billion. Most of this was real estate related. Interestingly, investment banking income was the second highest ever. Remember when CEO Ken Lewis quipped he had all the fun he could handle in investment banking and all but vowed to exit the business? Good thing he didn't.  

For more:
- here's the press release

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