Bank of America CFO says 2Q 'a little bit slower'

Bank of America Corp. Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson dispelled some of the worst fears about revenue from capital markets this quarter, saying that volumes are down but not as much as late last year
Given some of the recent market volatility, second-quarter trading volumes and investment banking activity "has been a little bit slower" than in the first-quarter, Mr. Thompson said at the Morgan Stanley Financial Services Conference in New York
But "you think about the last couple of quarters we've gone through.. it was clearly much better than what we saw during the second quarter of last year."
Several analysts have reduced their earnings estimates for diversified banks like J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and securities firms like Morgan Stanley (MS) because markets have been rattled by fears about the European fiscal crisis, the cooling economy in China, and slow job creation in the U.S
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) analysts, for example, lowered estimates on banks to reflect a projected 30% quarter-on-quarter decline in capital markets revenue
The firm reduced second-quarter profit estimates for Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. (C), J.P.Morgan and Bank of America. David Trone of JMP Securities downgraded all four and Goldman Sachs to "underperform" on May 21 because he expected shares and earnings "to fall significantly over the balance of 2012."