Bank of America is one of the largest financial institutions in the United States, with more than $3.2 trillion in assets. It is organized into four major segments: consumer banking, global wealth and investment management, global banking, and global markets. Bank of America's consumer-facing lines of business include its network of branches and deposit-gathering operations, retail lending products, credit and debit cards, and small-business services. The company's Merrill Lynch operations provide brokerage and wealth-management services, as does its private bank. Wholesale lines of business include investment banking, corporate and commercial real estate lending, and capital markets operations. Bank of America has operations in several countries but is primarily US-focused.

Bank of America is one of the largest financial companies in the world. The company is primarily a U.S. retail and commercial bank, with a network of more than 4,000 branches across much of the country. The 2005 acquisition of MBNA made Bank of America the nation's largest credit-card lender. As such, trends in consumer interest rates, employment, income growth, and borrowing patterns represent a significant risk to the company's earnings. The 2008 acquisition of Countrywide made BofA the country's largest mortgage company as well. BofA became a top-tier securities firm and retail broker with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The stock market has settled down over the past couple of days and volume has fallen sharply since we saw huge volume earlier this month. Fortunately, not all that trading was to the downside as there were a few accumulation days. During a correction phase and many times near 'a low,' volume hits very high levels. When the market starts a new uptrend, volume must increase, but will never reach the levels during the decline -- especially when the downtrend had at least a tinge of panic. We have witnessed what is dreadfully called 'a death cross' for the S&P 500 (SPX), the Nasdaq, and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) -- but just barely. The S&P 400 had such a cross on April 3 and the S&P 600 on March 18. A death cross is when the 50-day simple average crosses below the 200-day on an index, industry, sector, or individual stock. While there have been some massive SPX declines after a death cross (including 1930, 1937, 1940, 1962, 1969, 1973, 1981, 2000, 2002, 2007, and 2022), there also have been instances where the losses were less than 10% and other times when there was no loss at all. So we view a death cross as a warning, but with a good deal of 'urban legend' baked in. We also have seen some other potentially worrisome crossovers in the SPX, with the 10-week crossing the 21-week exponential (EMA), and crosses involving the 10-week simple/40-week simple, the 16-week EMA/39-week EMA (very close), the 13-week EMA under both the 26-week and 40-week EMA, and the 26-week EMA close to cutting the 40-week for a double bearish cross-over. The SPX has not broken very important support from the 50-month and the 200-week simple averages, which is between 4,665 and 4,690.

Bank of America is one of the largest financial institutions in the United States, with more than $3.2 trillion in assets. It is organized into four major segments: consumer banking, global wealth and investment management, global banking, and global markets. Bank of America's consumer-facing lines of business include its network of branches and deposit-gathering operations, retail lending products, credit and debit cards, and small-business services. The company's Merrill Lynch operations provide brokerage and wealth-management services, as does its private bank. Wholesale lines of business include investment banking, corporate and commercial real estate lending, and capital markets operations. Bank of America has operations in several countries but is primarily US-focused.