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    Coinbase picks Ireland as its main EU regulatory hub as U.S. authorities go on the offensive

    Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has chosen Ireland as its main operational and regulatory hub in the European Union, the company told CNBC exclusively.
    Coinbase has had an office in Dublin since 2018. The company employs about 100 people in Ireland.
    If and when it is approved, Coinbase will have a universal “MiCA license” in Ireland, which it can then use to “passport” its services into Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and other EU countries.
    Coinbase is banking on growth in the European Union, a continent with a total population of 450 million, and other international hubs, as it faces regulatory pressure back home.

    Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has chosen Ireland as its main operational and regulatory hub in the European Union, the company told CNBC in an exclusive interview.
    Coinbase submitted its application for a license under the EU’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which is set to come into force by December 2024, with the Central Bank of Ireland.

    Coinbase has had an office in Dublin since 2018. The company employs about 100 people in Ireland.
    If and when it is approved, Coinbase will have a universal “MiCA license” in Ireland, which it can then use to “passport” its services into Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and other EU countries.
    That makes it easier for Coinbase to launch new products in those markets without having to apply for individual licenses in each country. Coinbase says it’s confident it will be able to win this license.
    The company is planning to be operational with its MiCA license from “day one,” Nana Murugesan, Coinbase’s vice president of international, told CNBC in an interview earlier this week.

    What is MiCA?

    MiCA is the EU’s attempt at introducing a pan-European regulatory framework for crypto companies. It seeks to introduce protections for investors buying and selling crypto assets, like bitcoin and ethereum.

    The rules will allow crypto companies to use one license in one country to operate across all 27 EU member states.
    The regulation imposes a number of requirements on crypto firms, particularly exchanges, including the requirement that they don’t commingle client funds with their own assets.
    “As soon as MiCA was passed into law, and even before that, we’ve been considering a number of member states,” Murugesan said. “It was a long decision making process and we’ve been very impressed with the engagement from Ireland throughout.”
    “It was really important for us to choose a member state that is not only a sophisticated regulator with significant experience in regulating financial services, but also recognises the importance of a globally integrated business model, the way we are structured as a company, and also the potential of this innovative new technology.”
    Currently, Coinbase has an electronic money institution license and virtual asset service provider registration in Ireland; a crypto license in Germany; and national registrations in other EU member states including Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

    U.S. lawsuit

    The company, which is headquartered in San Francisco, is one of the largest crypto trading venues globally.

    The expansion move comes at a difficult time for the crypto industry. Crypto companies have been seeing their volumes decline, while fundraising has slowed, as macroeconomic conditions have gotten tougher and regulatory scrutiny has mounted.
    Coinbase is banking on growth in the European Union, a continent with a total population of 450 million, and other international hubs, as it faces regulatory pressure back home — not least from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accuses the company of operating an illegal securities venue.
    Coinbase disputes the SEC’s claims, and is fighting the case. However, its aim is for there to be formal crypto legislation, rather than constant litigation in the courts.
    Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said that progress has been “slower” than he’d like when it comes to achieving crypto regulation in the U.S. But he’s hopeful for more regulatory clarity in the future.
    “We’re now seeing in court cases real questions being asked about the U.S. approach to crypto regulation and in particular securities regulation,” he said. “Judge after judge is asking serious questions about the SEC’s interpretation of our US securities laws and, frankly, challenging some fundamental points that the SEC has pressed on whether tokens are securities at all.”
    “MiCA, on the other hand, I think offers … a more substantial and serious approach to crypto regulation in that it isn’t caught up with the jurisdictional fights the turf battles that we have the United States over whether particular transactions or securities transactions or commodities transactions. Instead, the focus is on keeping consumers and investors safe.”
    As a market for crypto, digital asset usage is less prevalent than it is in the U.S. According to Chainalysis data, Central, Northern, and Western Europe is the second-biggest crypto economy in the world, behind only North America. However, Coinbase expects lots of growth in the region.
    “In recent quarters, Coinbase has earned as much as 15%, or even 20%, of top line revenue from across Europe,” Grewal told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal — the firm reported $808.3 million of sales globally in the second quarter of 2023, according to its latest earnings report.
    “But for us, we’re going to approach the opportunity in a responsible, measured way, we’re going to let our customers drive our investments and drive our focus on what opportunities to pursue. It’s an exciting future.”
    Coinbase has also decided to make Germany its regional “talent hub,” and will look to ramp up its hiring in that market to localize and tailor its product specifically for Germany.
    “We are very grateful to Germany for all the support they have provided,” Murugesan told CNBC. “Our German operation has grown from strength to strength and more than doubled in headcount.”

    EU-first approach to products

    Coinbase may even look to launch new products in Europe first before rolling them out in the U.S., Murugesan said.
    The EU will be a “testbed” for Coinbase to think about “utilitarian” functions of crypto that people need in their daily lives, such as payments and transacting rather than trading, he told CNBC.
    “With MiCA and the clarity that it offers, it allows us to innovate,” he added. “And hopefully, we’ll see some of those daily use cases roll out in EU first.” 
    Daniel Seifert, vice president of EMEA for Coinbase, said the company is also looking to launch integrations with other payment providers to make it easier for users to access digital tokens through Coinbase.
    “There’s lots of exciting plans for the region that we’re going to see in the coming weeks and months,” Seifert said.
    — CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report More

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    Fed Chair Powell to deliver key speech Thursday. Here’s what to expect

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver what could be a key policy address Thursday afternoon in New York.
    “Higher for longer” on rates has become an unofficial mantra in recent days, and Powell is expected to join the chorus.
    Markets largely expect the Fed to stay on hold with rates, but they will be looking to Powell for confirmation and clarification.

    U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference after the release of the Fed policy decision to leave interest rates unchanged, at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 20, 2023.
    Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver what could be a key policy address Thursday, in which he will be tasked with convincing markets the central bank is committed to keep hammering away at inflation, but perhaps now needs a little less force.
    The top monetary policymaker will speak at noon ET to the Economic Club of New York at a critical time for the U.S. economy.

    Inflation numbers have been improving lately, but Treasury yields have been surging, sending conflicting messages about where monetary policy might be headed. Markets largely expect the Fed to stay on hold with rates, but they will be looking to Powell for confirmation and clarification on how officials view both current conditions and longer-term trends.
    “Powell is always tacking back to whatever helps feed the narrative that they need to stay vigilant, and for understandable reasons,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust. “I just expect him to keep talking about the strength of the economy and the surprising strength of the consumer in the third quarter as a risk for inflation. That is enough ammunition to keep talking about staying vigilant.”
    Essentially, Tilley expects the Powell message to break into three parts: The Fed needed to get rates high quickly, which it did; that it had to find a peak level, which is part of the current debate; and that it needs to figure out how long rates need to stay this high to get inflation back to its 2% target.
    “Really, their ultimate goal is to keep financial conditions tight so inflation comes down,” he said. “He’s going to use that framework, even if he’s dovish about Nov. 1 (the next Fed rate decision) or December to shift the hawkishness to that third question of how long to keep them this high.”

    “Higher for longer” has become an unofficial mantra in recent days, with Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker earlier this week mentioning the term specifically for how he feels about policy.

    Harker was one of several Fed officials, including governors Philip Jefferson, who spoke earlier this month, and Christopher Waller, who spoke Wednesday, to advocate holding off on rate hikes at least in the immediate future while they weigh the effects of incoming data. Waller said the Fed can “wait, watch and see” before it moves on rates.
    Powell is expected to join the chorus Thursday, even if his message is filled with caveats about not becoming complacent in the fight against inflation.
    “Powell has to present himself to investors as the dispassionate neutral leader and allow [others] to be more aggressive,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial. “They’re not going to declare victory, and that is one reason why Powell is going to continue to talk somewhat hawkish.”
    To that point, New York Fed President John Williams on Wednesday moved some of the way there, when he repeated another familiar mantra, that the Fed will have to keep the “restrictive stance of policy in place for some time” to deal with inflation, according to a Reuters report.
    Similar to the other speakers, Powell likely will reiterate a data-dependent focus for the Fed after a much more aggressive path in which it has raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times for a total of 5.25 percentage points, its highest level in 22 years. The Fed opted not to hike in September.
    He also, though, will be looked to for some guidance as to how he feels about rising yields, in light of the 10-year Treasury having inched closer to 5%, its highest point in 16 years.
    The chair “will stick to the message … that the data has been coming in stronger than expected, but there has also been a big move in yields, which has tightened financial conditions, so no urgency for a policy response in November and the Fed can adopt a wait-and-see approach,” Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said in a client note.
    Guha said that a Fed on hold now will only be a “down payment” on “extra cuts” in rates for 2024 as inflation and economic growth both weaken.Don’t miss these CNBC PRO stories: More

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    China’s economy may be growing faster, but big problems remain

    China’s emergence from its covid-19 controls was meant to be the biggest economic event of the year. Instead, the reopening has turned into one of the biggest disappointments. In a recent survey by Bank of America, fund managers in Asia expressed their “fatigue and frustration” with China’s weak growth and the lack of a concerted government response.On the face of it, economic data released on October 18th should cheer them up. The figures showed that China’s economy grew by 4.9% in the third quarter, compared with a year earlier—faster than expected. And its growth compared with the previous quarter was stronger still: 5.3% at an annualised rate. The economy should now have little trouble meeting the government’s growth target of “around 5%” for this year. ubs, a bank, raised its forecast for 2023 from 4.8% to 5.2%.The source of the growth was also encouraging. Consumption contributed almost 95% of it, noted Sheng Laiyun of China’s National Bureau of Statistics. There are signs that the country’s beleaguered households may be coming out of their shells. Demand for longer-term loans is growing; the saving rate, adjusted for the season, fell below 30% of disposable income for the first time since the pandemic, according to Yi Xiong of Deutsche Bank.One reason may be improvements in the job market. Urban unemployment fell to 5% in September from 5.2% in the previous month and the average workweek lengthened. Household debt burdens have also eased a little. China’s authorities have urged banks to cut the interest rate on outstanding mortgages in line with the lower rates available for new ones. On October 13th the central bank said that the interest rate on existing mortgages, worth 21.7trn yuan ($3trn), had been lowered by 0.73 percentage points, which should free up over 100bn yuan of spending power a year.But the good news for households was not matched by good news for houses. The property market remains dangerously weak. The amount of residential floorspace sold by property developers in September was 21% below that sold last year. Increasingly, China’s developers must actually finish buildings before they can sell them. Completed buildings accounted for almost a quarter of sales in September, compared with less than 13% in 2021.image: The EconomistThe threat of deflation lingers, too. China’s annual nominal growth, which includes inflation, was 3.5% in the third quarter, lower than the real, inflation-adjusted figure. This suggests that the prices of goods and services fell by almost 1.4%, the second drop in a row (see chart 1), resulting in China’s worst deflationary spell since 2009.Thus fatigue and frustration should not give way to complacency. At the imf’s annual meeting, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the fund’s chief economist, called for “forceful action” from China’s government to restructure struggling property developers, contain financial dangers and redeploy fiscal measures to help households.The government has taken some steps. It has allowed a growing number of local governments to issue “refinancing bonds”, which will help clear late payments to suppliers and replace the more expensive debt owed by local-government financing vehicles. The authorities seem keen to prevent one of these vehicles defaulting.But preserving financial stability is not the same as reviving growth. The government’s efforts to stimulate demand have so far been both piecemeal and grudging. Its fear of doing too much seems to outweigh its fear of doing too little. With the official growth target in sight, the government may now be tempted to wait and see how the recovery evolves before pursuing further stimulus. In the face of a hostile America and turbulent geopolitics, it appears keen to keep its fiscal powder dry.image: The EconomistStill, it is hard to see how deflation strengthens China’s position. The imf now thinks that China’s prices, as measured by its gdp deflator, will fall this year compared with last. Combined with the yuan’s weakness, gdp could shrink in dollar terms. Indeed, China’s economy will gain little ground on America’s in the next five years, according to the fund (see chart 2).The contrast with the imf’s April forecast is stark. In the space of six months, the fund has shorn off more than $15trn, in today’s dollars, from China’s cumulative gdp for the years from 2023 to 2028. Few economies can match China’s scale. And that includes the scale of its disappointments. ■ More

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    Fed’s Waller says officials can ‘wait, watch and see’ before acting on interest rates

    Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Wednesday indicated the central bank can afford to hold off on interest rate increases as it watches incoming data.
    “I believe we can wait, watch and see how the economy evolves before making definitive moves on the path of the policy rate,” he said in prepared remarks for a speech in London.

    Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Wednesday indicated the central bank can afford to hold off on interest rate increases while it watches progress unfold in its efforts to bring down inflation.
    With the Fed set to meet again in two weeks, Waller said he is weighing recent data points against each other to see whether the central bank is succeeding in bringing down demand and slowing inflation, or if the economy continues to show resilience and pushes harder on prices.

    “As of today, it is too soon to tell,” he said in prepared remarks for a speech in London. “Consequently, I believe we can wait, watch and see how the economy evolves before making definitive moves on the path of the policy rate.”
    The remarks come a day before Fed Chair Jerome Powell is set to deliver what could be a key policy speech in New York.
    In recent days, multiple Fed officials have said rising Treasury yields are indicative that financial conditions are tightening, possibly making additional rate hikes unnecessary. The 10-year Treasury yield topped 4.9% on Wednesday, a first since 2007.
    Indeed, Waller noted the backup in yields and said economic reports over the past several months have been “overwhelmingly positive” regarding inflation. Widely watched indicators such as the consumer price index and the Fed’s preferred personal consumption expenditures price index show rolling core inflation on a three-month basis, respectively at 3.1% and 2%, he noted.

    However, officials are wary of head fakes on inflation that have confounded past policy decisions. Few if any Fed officials see rate cuts in the future, but many are leaning toward the idea that the current hiking cycle could be over.

    Waller has been one of the more hawkish Fed officials, meaning he favors higher rates and tighter policy. As a governor, he automatically gets a vote on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. His remarks pointed to a near-term halt, without a commitment beyond that.
    “Should the real side of the economy soften, we will have more room to wait on any further rate hikes and let the recent run-up on longer-term rates do some of our work,” he said. “But if the real economy continues showing underlying strength and inflation appears to stabilize or reaccelerate, more policy tightening is likely needed despite the recent run up in longer term rates.”
    Recent economic reports showed a strong labor market, with nonfarm payrolls rising by 336,000 in September. A Commerce Department report Tuesday showed robust retail spending up 0.7% in September, outpacing inflation and Wall Street estimates.
    Waller said he will be watching that data as well as figures on nonresidential investment such as factories, as well as construction spending and next week’s first look at third-quarter gross domestic product growth.
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    Morgan Stanley beats estimates on trading, but shares dip as wealth management disappoints

    Morgan Stanley reported third-quarter earnings Wednesday.
    The bank topped profit expectations and roughly matched estimates for revenue.
    Shares of Morgan Stanley dipped 3.2% in premarket trading.

    Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive James Gorman speaks during the Institute of International Finance Annual Meeting in Washington, October 10, 2014.
    Joshua Roberts | Reuters

    Morgan Stanley posted third-quarter results Wednesday that topped profit estimates on better-than-expected trading revenue.
    Here’s what the company reported:

    Earnings per share: $1.38, vs. $1.28 estimate from LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv
    Revenue: $13.27 billion, vs. expected $13.23 billion

    Profit fell 9% to $2.41 billion, or $1.38 a share, from a year ago, the New York-based bank said in a statement. Revenue grew 2% to $13.27 billion, essentially matching expectations.
    Morgan Stanley’s trading operations helped offset revenue misses elsewhere at the firm. The bank’s bond traders produced $1.95 billion in revenue, roughly $200 million more than the StreetAccount estimate, while equity traders brought in $2.51 billion in revenue, $100 million more than expected.
    But the bank’s all-important wealth management division generated $6.4 billion in revenue, below the estimate by more than $200 million, as compensation costs in the division rose.
    Investment banking accounted for another miss in the quarter, producing $938 million in revenue, below the $1.11 billion estimate, as the company cited weakness in mergers and IPO listings. The bank’s investment management division essentially met expectations with $1.34 billion in revenue.
    Shares of Morgan Stanley dipped 3% in premarket trading.

    Stock chart icon

    Morgan Stanley shares have been under pressure this year.

    CEO James Gorman cited a “mixed” environment for his businesses and acknowledged that the firm’s wealth management division gathered fewer new assets than in recent quarters. That’s because surging interest rates have made money market funds and Treasuries attractive, he told analysts Wednesday. The wealth management business was still tracking to hit his three-year goal of generating $1 trillion in new assets, he added.
    “When people have a choice of making a 4%, 5% return by doing nothing, they’re not going to be trading in the markets,” Gorman said.

    ‘Clean slate’

    Led by Gorman since 2010, Morgan Stanley has managed to avoid the turbulence afflicting some rivals lately. While Goldman Sachs was forced to pivot after a foray into retail banking and as Citigroup struggles to lift its stock price, the main question at Morgan Stanley is about an orderly CEO succession.
    In May, Gorman announced his plan to resign within a year, capping a successful tenure marked by massive acquisitions in wealth and asset management. Morgan Stanley’s board has narrowed the search for his successor to three internal executives, he said at the time.
    Gorman reiterated his desire to hand over the CEO position to a successor within months.
    “This firm is in excellent shape notwithstanding the geopolitical and market turmoil that we find ourselves in,” Gorman said. “My hope and expectation is to hand over Morgan Stanley with as clean a slate as possible and deal with a few of our outstanding issues in the next couple of months.”
    Last week, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup each topped expectations for third-quarter profit, helped by low credit costs. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America also beat estimates on stronger-than-expected bond trading results.
    This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

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    Adidas shares climb after boost from Yeezy sales, guidance raise

    Adidas shares climbed 4% during early trade in Europe on Wednesday.
    The German sportswear giant projected a full-year operating loss of 100 million euros ($106 million), a significant improvement on its previous forecast of a 450 million euro loss.

    Shoes are offered for sale at an Adidas store in Chicago, Feb. 10, 2023.
    Scott Olson | Getty Images

    Adidas on Tuesday hiked its full-year guidance and posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings, aided by sales of its Yeezy inventory.
    The German sportswear giant, in a surprise preliminary estimates release, projected a full-year operating loss of 100 million euros ($106 million), a significant improvement on its previous forecast of a 450 million euro loss, and expects revenues to decline at a low-single-digit rate for 2023.

    Third-quarter operating profit came in at 409 million euros, down from 564 million for the same quarter in 2022.
    Adidas shares climbed 4% during early trade in Europe on Wednesday.
    “While the company’s performance in the quarter was again positively impacted by the sale of parts of its remaining Yeezy inventory, the underlying adidas business also developed better than expected,” Adidas said in its earnings report.
    The company terminated its partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in October 2022 after the rapper made a series of offensive and antisemitic remarks. It has since been working to sell off its remaining inventory of his trademark Yeezy sneakers.
    “Including the positive impact from the two Yeezy drops in Q2 and Q3, the potential write-off of the remaining Yeezy inventory of now around € 300 million (previously: € 400 million) and one-off costs related to the strategic review of up to € 200 million (unchanged), adidas now expects to report an operating loss of around € 100 million in 2023 (previously: loss of € 450 million),” the company said. More

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    ‘Phantom hacker’ scams that target seniors’ savings are on the rise, FBI says

    “Phantom hacker” scams are an evolution of tech support scams, a type of cybercrime.
    Losses from tech support scams were up 40% as of August, the FBI said.
    “Phantom hacker” scams often wipe out bank, savings, retirement and investment accounts, the FBI said.

    South_agency | E+ | Getty Images

    There has been a nationwide increase in “phantom hacker” scams, a type of fraud “significantly impacting senior citizens,” who often lose their entire bank, savings, retirement or investment accounts to such crime, according to the FBI.
    “Phantom hacker” scams are an evolution of tech support scams, a type of cybercrime.

    As of August 2023, losses from tech support scams were up 40% during the same period in 2022, according to a recent FBI public service announcement. It didn’t disclose the total dollar loss during that period.
    More from Personal Finance:How this 77-year-old widow lost $661,000 in a common tech scamStudent loan borrowers at risk of scams as payments restart, says FTCLabor Department to raise protections for 401(k) to IRA rollovers
    Half the victims were over 60 years old and comprise 66% of the total financial losses, the FBI said.
    Older adults have generally amassed a larger nest egg than younger age groups, and therefore pose a more lucrative target for criminals. Older adults are also “particularly mindful of potential risks to their life savings,” Gregory Nelsen, FBI Cleveland special agent in charge, said in a statement.
    “These scammers are cold and calculated,” Nelsen said. “The criminals are using the victims’ own attentiveness against them,” he added.

    How ‘phantom hacker’ scams operate

    “Phantom hacker” crimes are multilayered.
    Initially, fraudsters generally pose as computer technicians from well-known companies and persuade victims they have a serious computer issue such as a virus, and that their financial accounts may also be at risk from foreign hackers.
    Accomplices then pose as officials from financial institutions or the U.S. government, who convince victims to move their money from accounts that are supposedly at risk to new “safe” accounts, under the guise of protecting their assets.

    None of it is true.
    “In reality, there was never any foreign hacker, and the money is now fully controlled by the scammers,” according to a recent announcement by the FBI’s Cleveland bureau.
    About 19,000 victims of tech-support scams submitted complaints to the FBI between January 2023 and June 2023. Estimated losses totaled more than $542 million, the FBI said.
    By comparison, there were about 33,000 total complaints and $807 million in losses in 2022, according to FBI data.

    Tips for consumers to protect their money

    The FBI offered five “don’ts” to help consumers sidestep this kind of fraud:

    Don’t click on unsolicited computer pop-ups, or links or attachments in text messages and emails.
    Don’t contact the phone number provided in a pop-up, text or email telling you to call a number for “assistance.”
    Don’t download software upon the request of an unknown individual who contacted you.
    Don’t let an unknown person who contacted you have control of your computer.
    Don’t send money via wire transfer to foreign accounts, cryptocurrency or gift or prepaid cards at the behest of someone you don’t know.Don’t miss these CNBC PRO stories: More

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    Bank of America tops profit estimates on better-than-expected interest income

    Bank of America earnings and revenue topped Wall Street’s expectations.
    The bank posted better-than-estimated interest income.
    CEO Brian Moynihan said consumer spending continued to slow.

    Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America
    Heidi Gutman | CNBC

    Bank of America topped estimates for third-quarter profit on Tuesday on stronger-than-expected interest income.
    Here’s what the company reported:

    Earnings per share: 90 cents vs. expected 82 cent estimate from LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv
    Revenue: $25.32 billion, vs. expected $25.14 billion

    Profit rose 10% to $7.8 billion, or 90 cents per share, from $7.1 billion, or 81 cents a share, a year earlier, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said in a release. Revenue climbed 2.9% to $25.32 billion, edging out the LSEG estimate.
    Bank of America said interest income rose 4% to $14.4 billion, roughly $300 million more than analysts had anticipated, fueled by higher rates and loan growth. The bank’s provision for credit losses also came in better than expected, at $1.2 billion, under the $1.3 billion estimate.
    Shares of Bank of America rose 1.4% in premarket trading.
    CEO Brian Moynihan said the second biggest U.S. bank by assets continued to grow, despite signs of an economic slowdown.
    “We added clients and accounts across all lines of business,” Moynihan said. “We did this in a healthy but slowing economy that saw U.S. consumer spending still ahead of last year but continuing to slow.”

    Bank of America was supposed to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of higher interest rates this year. Instead, the company’s stock has been the worst performer among its big bank peers in 2023. That’s because, under Moynihan, the lender piled into low-yielding, long-dated securities during the Covid pandemic. Those securities lost value as interest rates climbed.
    That’s made Bank of America more sensitive to the recent surge in the 10-year Treasury yield than its peers — and more similar to some regional banks that are also nursing underwater bonds. Bank of America had more than $100 billion in paper losses on bonds at midyear.
    The situation has pressured the bank’s net interest income, or NII, which is a key metric that analysts will be watching this quarter. In July, the bank’s CFO, Alastair Borthwick, affirmed previous guidance that NII would be roughly $57 billion for 2023.  
    Bank of America stock had fallen 18% this year through Monday, trailing the 10% gain of rival JPMorgan Chase.
    Last week, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup each topped expectations for third-quarter profit, helped by better-than-expected credit costs. Morgan Stanley is scheduled to post results Wednesday.  
    This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More