Bank of America Corp.’s first-quarter income fell 39 percent on higher costs related to its mortgage business and higher litigation expenses. The bank also settled a claim over faulty mortgage investments and set aside less money to cover soured loans.
The Charlotte, N.C. bank on Friday said it earned $1.7 billion, or 17 cents per share, compared with $2.8 billion, or 28 cents a share in the first quarter of last year. The earnings fell short of the 28 cents a share estimated by analysts surveyed by FactSet.
Revenue fell to $26.9 billion from $32 billion in the same period last year.
The nation’s largest bank by assets also announced that the bank’s chief risk officer, Bruce Thompson, will become chief financial officer, replacing Chuck Noski, who was named vice chairman. Noski couldn’t relocate to Charlotte to fulfill his CFO duties because of an illness of a close family member, the bank said in a statement.
Bank of America continued to fight losses, lawsuits and higher costs related to its mortgage businesses. Read more…
At tax time, one of the forms that you might run into is the 1099 Form. The IRS uses this form to distinguish different types of income that may not come to you as part of a regular job. When you aren’t issued a W-2 for your income, chances are that you will be issued a 1099. Those who have paid you are responsible for issuing the 1099 as long as you made over $600.
You should keep your 1099 with your tax records and reconcile it with your own records. Additionally, realize that, even if you don’t receive a 1099 from a payer, you are still responsible for reporting the income to the IRS.
Most all of us rely on credit at some point in our lives. While you may already know your credit is checked when applying for a loan or credit card, it may have also been checked when you signed up for a new cell phone plan, applied for a new apartment, or opened an account at a credit union.
Since credit affects so much of our adult lives, it’s important to know what factors go into your credit score, including open credit card utilization, percentage of on-time payments, number of derogatory marks, average age of open credit lines, total number of accounts and total hard credit inquiries. (Read more about these six factors here.)
It’s also important to understand what’s not in your credit score, especially since there are many misconceptions. Here’s a quick run-down of the factors that don’t affect your credit:
Isn’t it comforting to know that your creditors can’t discriminate against you due to your race or gender?
If you are at a stage in your life where obtaining life insurance is important to you, it is likely that you will have a lot of other financial responsibilities too. Finding life insurance that will cover you for these responsibilities after you have gone, but is justifiable within your current monthly budget, is more important than ever whilst the economy is still at a low point. Finding a life insurance policy to suit your budget doesn’t mean that you need to make a sacrifice on the quality of the policy. There are several ways that you can reduce the cost of your life insurance policy without compromise.
Obtain quotes
Getting a range of prices and policy types is important whichever type of insurance you are looking for. It is no different with life insurance quotes. Be sure to check several different companies when looking for your policy.
This news courtesy of Financial Advisor Nat Harris (emphasis added):
House Democrats plan to introduce a bill today to extend and overhaul the estate tax beyond 2012 in the opening salvo of what is likely to be a long and politically-charged debate next year.
A favored target of Republicans, the tax on inherited wealth already promises to be one of the most controversial elements of the tax code up for renewal at the end of next year. Six Republican presidential candidates, including all of the front-runners, have said they would repeal the tax.
But the legislation by Rep.
One of the problems hes trying to address is saving for retirement. Why do so many people save less than they need to? Heres what Ariely says, via a recent on the Betterment blog:
The world around us (wants) us to spend money now. The incentives (to spend) are always very high. It’s hard to resist that, and sadly, after being tempted towards spending, spending, spending, what we have left for savings is not enough.
Investing is between now and later. It’s about the trade off, and because people are not making these trade offs correctly, we’re basically in the (bad economic) situation that we’re in.
Money is fungible. Any time you spend money on anything, it could be spent on something else. The $10 lunch, the $1,000 TV, the $20,000 car. We all know this is true, but in practice we tend to weigh things differently.
The survey covered January to December 2010, and included 52,851 of their clients from the 50 states, Northern Mariana Islands, Virgin Islands and Guam. The information surveyed included gender, age, education, income, employment, marital status and causes of financial distress.
Key Findings
The largest increases from responders in the last five years were those in older age groups, college graduates, higher income levels, unemployed, married, and cause of financial distress. Part 1 of this blog covers education, income and cause of financial distress.
Education – The distribution of the 2010 responders by education level was as follows: graduate 6.73% (3,508), bachelor’s 13.58% (7,086), associate’s 8.82% (4,601), some college 28.73% (14,988), high school/GED 36.27% (18,919), primary school 5.38% (2,806), and no education 0.49% (253).
The graduate education level had the highest increase of 37.3 percent over 2006; the proportions were 4.9 percent in 2006 and 6.73 percent in 2010.