Depends where you look, now doesn’t it?
Keep your eyes fixed on the top line, the net income growth Ken Lewis keeps talking about, then a Q1 up $3b. over last year looks good. Notice, however, that twice that amount had to be put aside to cover bad loans — coughCountrywidecough — and the glow fades. Fast.
Ah, well and, yes, BofA is ripping through that portfolio, re-writing and cleaning up the mess as they go. Or so we’re told. Assume that is true — and that the labor market will somehow throw off enough income to service those new, lower rate loans. Fine. Also assume that Merrill’s credit exposure is solved while you are at it.
Then notice that BofA is putting aside over $8b. to cover losses in its credit cards and something has to give. I think that something will be one more shock to the system, possibly the outright failure of Citigroup, which is also on the “we’ll grow our way out” plan just like BofA, only in a much deeper hole.
By July I think we’ll know if that plan has legs.
