Bank of America executives see no signals of a looming economic downturn after garnering record profit at the end of 2018.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based lender’s optimism runs counter to the concerns of some economists, who have cautioned that U.S. growth is likely to decelerate within the next year as President Trump’s trade disputes and global turmoil including Britain’s troubled departure from the European Union curb spending by consumers and businesses alike.
“We see nothing in our businesses to suggest that a slowdown is imminent,” Chief Financial Officer Paul Donofrio told reporters on Wednesday. “We feel very good about the future.”
Net income at Bank of America more than doubled to $7.3 billion, or 70 cents a share, in the three months through December as average consumer loans increased to $289.9 billion and customers increasingly took advantage of mobile platforms that are both less frustrating for users and cheaper for the lender to operate.
The gains, fueled in part by GOP-led tax cuts in late 2017, overpowered a slight contraction in the company’s trading business, where bond revenue shrank 6.5 percent, less than the double-digit declines of rivals Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.
Both Wall Street firms cited a rise in market volatility during the quarter as traders grappled with the Federal Reserve’s fourth interest-rate hike in a year and parts of the U.S. government shut down after Trump refused to sign funding bills that didn’t include $5.7 billion for a barrier he wants to build along the country’s southern border.
“We’re in the moving business, not the storage business,” Donofrio said. “We run this business in a way that when things are great, we may not make as much as some of our competitors who are swinging for the fences, but when things are not great, we’d also see that performance.”
