The business of serving the sales and trading needs of institutional investors is an enormous one. Investors are diverse and include mutual funds, hedge funds, asset managers, foreign reserve managers and cash-rich corporations. Since 2003, industrywide revenue from this business has grown by about 15 percent per year, and it's projected to grow by 10 percent per year through 2008, according to independent research companies.

Bank of America has a competitive position in investment banking. At the end of 2006, we ranked third in investment grade debt underwriting (Thomson Financial). We are building greater trading capabilities focused on what clients most value. Our goal is to increase our market share and revenue growth until we rank among the top three firms in the United States. Since 2004, our market share ranking of fixed-income products has risen from 11th to 6th, according to Greenwich Associates.

We're expanding the size of our sales and trading teams in the United States and internationally. We're also devoting more capital to better act as a counterparty in support of our clients' trading. Along with efficient execution and greater liquidity, we're offering clients more choices across the risk spectrum.

"We're building stronger client relation ships," said Mark Werner, head of Global Markets. "Our success is reflected in the improvement we've seen in the quality scores our clients give us, as compiled by various consultants, and by our growth over the past 18 months. This momentum will help us become our clients' most sought after provider of financial solutions."

• Established business to originate and securitize middle-market leveraged loans
• Designed industry-leading electronic trading algorithms to optimize investment performance
• Redesigned client coverage model to optimize opportunities across the entire Bank of America franchise

• Estimated industry revenue from sales and trading has grown 15 percent a year since 2003.
• Industry revenue is expected to grow approximately 10 percent a year through 2008.
• Our goal is to become one of the top three broker-dealers in the United States.