Banking, finance, and taxes

Bank of America Cancels Buyback, Dividend Hike

Bank of America sign
courtesy of Alex Proimos, via Wikimedia Commons
When Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) reported first-quarter earnings less than two weeks ago, the firm said the results of its Federal Reserve stress tests would allow it to increase its dividend from $0.01 to $0.05 and that it would repurchase $4 billion stock. That’s not going to happen now.

In a press release Monday morning, the bank said that it had made an “incorrect adjustment” to the estimated Basel III capital amounts and ratios in its first-quarter results, and that it has now made the corrections. Bank of America has now lowered its estimated Basel III Tier 1 transition common ratio by 5 basis points to 11.8%, and its estimated Basel III fully phased-in common capital ratio has dropped 27 basis points to 9%. Other ratios and estimates were also revised downward.

Investors have responded by selling off the shares as quickly as they can. Nearly a third of Bank of America’s daily average of 105 million shares traded changed hands in the first 15 minutes of trading. The stock price was down about 5.4%, at $15.09 in a 52-week range of $12.05 to $18.03.

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