INSTANT VIEW: Bank of America earnings fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America (BAC.N) on Friday posted a lower quarterly profit, as core results were hurt by a surge in troubled loans as more credit card and mortgage customers fell behind on payments.

Second-quarter net income applicable to common shareholders fell 25 percent to $2.42 billion (1.48 billion pounds), or 33 cents per share, from $3.22 billion, or 72 cents, a year earlier.

Excluding the impact of preferred stock dividends in both periods, profit fell 5 percent to $3.22 billion. Net revenue rose 61 percent to $32.77 billion, helped by the Merrill Lynch & Co acquisition.

Analysts on average expected profit of 29 cents per share on revenue of $33.26 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

The following is reaction from industry analysts and investors:

MICHAEL HOLLAND, PRESIDENT OF HOLLAND & CO IN NEW YORK

"No surprise they're trading off a bit this morning, was concerned they couldn't continue the stretch of Goldman.

"0verall there is no other way to describe it the numbers than positive."

"We have a really ugly economic backdrop that these companies are faced with, jobless etc, those numbers aren't going to go away soon."

"I hope in the conference call they talk about what they're doing with top performing people in terms of compensation."

PETER BOOCKVAR, EQUITY STRATEGIST AT MILLER TABAK & CO IN NEW YORK

"I think that what Bank of America (BAC.N), GE (GE.N), IBM (IBM.N) and Mattel MAT.N all show is good earnings, relative to expectations, but revenue is missing guidance and expectations.

"So far, earnings season is good, but if you were to call it revenue season it'd be more of a mixed bag. What this shows is that companies are able to deal with cost structure, but that the revenue is light shows that we're still in a difficult economic environment.

"The Dow is up a lot this week, and with it being expiration day, I wouldn't be surprised if the market took a breather, especially after such a strong start to the week."

PHILIP GILLETT, SALES TRADER AT IG INDEX, LONDON

"The (BofA) results look better, but that's in large part due to cost cutting as they've lost baggage, which just shows they were rather flabby before."