BofA's huge miss

The bank reports drops in profit and revenue -- and misses Wall Street's estimate. EBay beats analysts' estimates and boosts its forecast for the fourth quarter. The SEC looks into Countrywide CEO's stock sales. Boston Scientific will slash jobs.

Bank of America (BAC, news, msgs) is the latest bank to report earnings, and the picture is pretty bleak.

BofA reported earnings of 82 cents per share -- well below the consensus estimate of $1.06 per share -- and said it earned $3.7 billion in the third quarter, down 32% from the $5.42 billion in the same period last year.

"While the significant dislocations in the capital markets have hurt most participants, we are still very disappointed in our third-quarter performance," Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said in a press release.

* Video: More on BofA's earnings

Revenue fell 12% to $16.3 billion.

Shares of Bank of America fell $1.63, or 3.26%, to $48.40 in late morning.

Stocks moved lower this morning after Bank of America's grim earnings report. At 11:25 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost 41 points to 13,851. The Nasdaq Composite Index had shed 17 points to 2,775, and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 7 points to 1,535.

Light, sweet crude oil was up $1.31 to $88.71 in morning trading today.

Where things went wrong at BofA: Global Corporate and Investment Banking net income plunged 93% to $100 million in the quarter, and the bank's Capital Markets and Advisory Services reported a $717 million loss, down from profit of $247 million last year.

* Talk back: Where were you 20 years ago on Black Monday?

BofA's earnings report "is the tie-breaker among the big uglies right now," Jason Trennert of Strategas Research Partners told CNBC this morning, referring to the mixed bag of quarterly earnings investors are seeing from the big banks and Wall Street firms. Citigroup (C, news, msgs) earlier this week announced a 57% plunge in profit, for instance, while JPMorgan Chase (JPM, news, msgs) Wednesday reported a 2% increase in profit, despite billions in write-downs for bad loans.

"The problems in the financial sector are not over," Trennert added. "I think there are going to be more bodies that are going to float to the surface."

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com