c.e.o. brian moynihan calls it a new era for the bank. in addition to pledging no more mergers and a return to dividends, b-of-a will split its $2 trillion portfolio of home loans just about in half. it will continue to own 49%, while separating the rest for sale. those will be the worst- performing, riskiest loans, most of them done between 2004 and 2008, during the worst of the housing bubble. speaking of mortgages, homebuilder pulte group saw a nice 8% pop, reversing some of the slide shares have seen since may of last year. the builder said it signed 11% more home sale contracts in the first two months of this year compared to last year. other builders also saw some stock buying. mdc gained 11%. it got a couple of analyst upgrades. ryland was up 7.5%. kb home rallied about 5.5%. while bank of america led the dow, mcdonald's was the laggard, falling 1%. february same-store sales were up more than expected, but the performance in the u.s. was disappointing. the stock has seen some choppy times in the past two months after hitting new al

c.e.o. brian brian moynihan back in january even president bob king justified the u.a.w. as protest by saying quote anything that would help the middle class bank of america posed when workers are struggling to pay childcare and feed their families bank of america in two thousand and ten made seventeen and a half billion dollars from credit card a.t.m. fees. similarly the new york times reported today that america's largest corporation g.e. made fourteen billion dollars internationally and over five billion dollars in the united states again in profits and the money left over after they paid everybody else everything else but instead of going to axis they got a three billion dollar tax benefit that's as in from you and me so how is it that an extremely profitable corporation like bank of america pays nothing in taxes and g.e. even gets money back whereas you and i are paying up to thirty five percent in tax rates rise of the corporations paid thirty percent of the cost to government the one nine hundred fifty s. but the day pay only six point six percent with you and me p