Bank of America says its third-quarter profit fell to $6.9 billion, or 91 cents a share, from $8.3 billion, or $1.04, a year earlier, after it booked a $1.2 billion charge for the federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions penalties that regulators announced a day earlier, according to the earnings release the bank filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, October 14. The bank’s newsroom dates the release “October 14, 2026 at 6:45 AM Eastern” (3:45 AM PT); SEC EDGAR shows the Form 8-K accepted at 3:44 AM PT. The earliest timestamped outlet report this desk found came from MarketWatch, which posted on X at 4:00 AM PT that “Bank of America stock falls after below-forecast earnings”; this desk could not read the MarketWatch page itself. CNBC (Hugh Son, in a preview first posted at 3:15 AM PT and updated with the results, last modified 4:58 AM PT), Quartz (Cris Tolomia, 4:12 AM PT) and a CNBC premarket-movers roundup (Davis Giangiulio, 4:36 AM PT) also reported the results.
The release spells out how the penalties hit the quarter. It says that “On October 13, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that the Corporation consented to orders,” and that “As a result, for 3Q26, the Corporation recorded non-tax-deductible noninterest expense of $1.2B to accrue for the civil money penalties resulting from the regulatory consent orders.” The bank’s own table shows the charge adding $1.2 billion to noninterest expense, which rose to $19.7 billion, with no tax effect: income tax expense reads $2.0 billion in both the reported and adjusted columns. Without the charge, the bank says, adjusted net income comes to $8.1 billion and adjusted earnings per share to $1.08, both non-GAAP measures. CNBC had reported on Tuesday, citing a bank statement, that the charge would reduce net income “by about 17 cents per share.”
The penalties themselves came from Treasury agencies on Tuesday, as this desk reported then. CNBC (Luke Fountain) says regulators said the bank failed “for years to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions,” and that FinCEN called its $1.2 billion penalty “the third-largest in Treasury history.” Both CNBC and Quartz say the OCC’s $750 million civil money penalty counts toward the $1.21 billion total, and that the Treasury separately announced an $11.6 million sanctions settlement. Quartz and CNBC both quote Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: “Today's actions send a clear message that even the biggest financial institutions are not above the law.”
On the rest of the quarter, the release puts revenue, net of interest expense, at $30.0 billion, up 3%, and net interest income at $16.4 billion, up 8%, “driven primarily by higher loan and deposit balances, higher NII related to Global Markets activity and fixed-rate asset repricing.” It says average deposits rose 2% to $2.02 trillion and average loans and leases rose 6% to $1.23 trillion. Sales and trading revenue fell 5% to $5.1 billion: fixed income, currencies and commodities revenue fell 17% to $2.6 billion, and equities revenue rose 11% to $2.5 billion, or 10% excluding net DVA, the release says. It puts total investment banking fees, excluding self-led deals, at $1.8 billion, down 11%, and net charge-offs at $1.3 billion, down from $1.4 billion.
CNBC sets those figures against analysts’ forecasts. It lists earnings per share of “91 cents, may not compare with $1.10 LSEG estimate” and revenue of “$30.12 billion vs. $30.69 billion estimate,” and says revenue came in “below expectations by about $570 million, largely on misses from Wall Street trading operations.” CNBC puts fixed income trading at $2.55 billion, “roughly $450 million below the StreetAccount estimate,” and equities trading at $2.51 billion, below expectations “by nearly $300 million.” CNBC’s story carries a correction saying an earlier version misstated the revenue comparison and that the $30.12 billion figure uses the FTE basis; the release itself gives $30.0 billion on a GAAP basis and $30.1 billion FTE.
In the release, Chair and CEO Brian Moynihan says: “The team delivered organic growth, deepening client relationships and adding new ones. While investment banking and sales and trading revenues were lower, commercial lending grew in every client segment.” He adds: “With more than 200,000 teammates using AI tools and 300-plus approved use cases across the company, we are turning our scale into a competitive advantage.” CFO Alastair Borthwick says: “Asset quality continued to improve and liquidity and capital remained strong.” The release says the bank returned $8.3 billion to shareholders through $2.2 billion in dividends and $6.0 billion in share buybacks, noting that “Amounts may not total due to rounding,” and reports a CET1 ratio of 10.9%, “well above the regulatory minimum.” The bank says Moynihan and Borthwick will discuss the results on an investor call at 8:30 a.m. ET (5:30 AM PT), after this desk’s cutoff, so this story carries nothing from it.
Market reaction came before the opening bell. CNBC says the shares “fell more than 4% in premarket trading,” and its movers roundup says the stock “tumbled 4%.” CNBC’s Hugh Son writes that the Treasury episode “will inevitably spark questions as to whether CEO Brian Moynihan has a handle on controls at the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets,” and notes that JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo “posted mixed results” on Tuesday.
Some figures differ across the reports. CNBC’s movers roundup says “Profit fell 17% to 91 cents per share,” but the release compares 91 cents with $1.04 a year earlier, a drop of about 12.5% by this desk’s arithmetic; the 17% matches net income, which CNBC’s main story says “fell 17% to $6.93 billion.” Quartz says analysts “had expected earnings of $1.10 per share, according to CNBC,” without CNBC’s note that the 91-cent figure “may not compare” with that estimate. The release also gives two growth rates for asset management fees: up 16% to $4.5 billion in the wealth unit’s highlights, and up 17% in Borthwick’s quote, which names no unit; this desk does not pick one.
