Instant View: Bank of America reports Q4 loss

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) on Wednesday reported a wider-than-forecast quarterly loss triggered mainly by costs associated with repaying taxpayer bailout funds.

The largest U.S. bank by assets reported net a net loss of $5.2 billion, or 60 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $2.4 billion, or 48 a share, in the year-earlier period.

Bank of America was expected to report a loss of $0.52 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll of 25 analysts.

The following is reaction from industry analysts and investors:

NEIL SMITH, ANALYST AT WESTLB, GERMANY

"I would describe the outlook statement as cautiously optimistic. It could have been worse. They key phrase is 'we have seen stabilization of our credit costs'. That's got to be good for the consumer business."

DAVID BUIK, PARTNER, BGC PARTNERS, LONDON

"A loss of 60 cents is quite a big number. The writedown is marginally improved, but we have a long way to go. We have made such an incredible rally both as an economy and a stock market, it is not surprising investors are threatening to take some money off the table. I think by the time we finish with Wells Fargo (WFC.N) and all the others, with a possible exception of Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) we will get the correction that we deserve."

THOMAS RUSSO, PARTNER AND PORTFOLIO MANAGER OVERSEEING MORE

THAN $3 BILLION AT GARDNER RUSSO & GARDNER IN LANCASTER,

PENNSYLVANIA

"Bank of America is a work in process. There will be a need at some point to pull a culture out of this conglomeration - to integrate Merrill, Countrywide, and work through their own management changes. In the past, they were on a march to get big, and owners were shortchanged. They need a more owner-minded culture, and we have no way of knowing how they'll navigate that. Their provisioning is still high, and it's in the interests of the new CEO to set the provision conservatively."

PETER DIXON, ECONOMIST, COMMERZBANK, LONDON

"It's slightly worse-than-expected. In terms of where we head from here, I think it will be a slow haul. Likes of Bank of America have clearly got big problems with domestic business, which needs to be sorted out. A bank which is heavily reliant on the domestic economy to pull it out of the mud is going to find things quite tough."

"The banking sector is facing difficulties on all sides. You have got a banking sector which still has huge amounts of bad debts. We are seeing more write-offs to come and we are seeing a banking sector which is now under huge amounts of political threat as a consequence of public anger with the bailouts."

GARY TOWNSEND, PRESIDENT AND CEO AT HILL-TOWNSEND CAPITAL:

"It looks at though we're still seeing some increases in nonperforming assets, but credit itself is declining. We'll wait to hear what their guidance will be, but it looks as though provisioning expense fell consecutively."

PETER BOOCKVAR, EQUITY STRATEGIST AT MILLER TABAK & CO IN

NEW YORK

"Obviously earnings and revenue came in below consensus and the stock is subject to the same selling we've seen in IBM, JPMorgan and Alcoa, among others. Earnings season, relative to expectations, is disappointing so far. I think people were hoping for more."

STEPHEN POPE, CHIEF GLOBAL EQUITY STRATEGIST AT CANTOR

FITZGERALD, LONDON

"They lost 60 cents and 52 were generally expected ... What you are finding is that this is a strange creature where you have got Merrill Lynch on the investment banking side ... probably healthy revenues from bond underwriting and trading. However, Bank of America is probably still facing difficulties of impairment charges against outstanding commercial and consumer debt."

"I think if you are to find after those sort of figures that Bank of America seeks to pay out enormous bonus again, it would cause major repercussion and outcry."

(Reporting by Atul Prakash, Dominic Lau, Joanne Frearson, Brian Gorman, Jonathan Spicer and Ryan Vlastelica)