Bank of America reported net income of $6.2 billion compared with a net loss of $8.8 billion in the previous quarter and $7.3 billion in the year-ago period. Revenue, net of interest expense, rose 6% from $27.0 billion to $28.7 billion.

The bank said there were a number of significant items that affected results in both periods. The most recent quarter included, among other things, $4.5 billion (pretax) in positive fair value adjustments on structured liabilities, a pretax gain of $3.6 billion from the sale of shares of China Construction Bank (CCB), $1.7 billion pretax gain in trading Debit Valuation Adjustments (DVA), and a pretax loss of $2.2 billion related to private equity and strategic investments, excluding CCB. The year-ago quarter included a $10.4 billion goodwill impairment charge.

The bank noted that third-quarter net charge-offs of $5.1 billion were down from $7.2 billion in the third quarter of 2010, reflecting improvement in most of the consumer and commercial portfolios. The provision for credit losses declined to $3.4 billion from $5.4 billion a year ago and included reserve reductions of $1.7 billion driven primarily by improvement in projected delinquencies, collections and bankruptcies across the Card Services portfolios and by improvement in economic conditions impacting the core commercial portfolio, as evidenced by continued declines in reservable criticized and nonperforming balances.

Bank of America said it continued to expand its service for small business owners by hiring nearly 500 locally based small business bankers through the third quarter of 2011 to provide convenient access to financial advice and solutions. The company said it plans to hire more than 1,000 small business bankers by early 2012.

“This quarter’s results reflect several actions we took that highlight our ongoing transformation toward becoming a leaner, more focused company,” said chief executive officer Brian Moynihan. “The diversity and depth in our customer and client offerings provided some resiliency in a very challenging environment.”

“Our focus this quarter was on strengthening the balance sheet by selling non-core assets and building capital to position the company for future growth,” said chief financial officer Bruce Thompson. “In that regard, we accomplished a great deal. We reduced the size of our balance sheet by $42 billion from the second quarter of 2011, nearly doubled our Tier 1 common equity ratio since early 2009, and continued to have strong liquidity levels even after significantly reducing both short- and long-term debt.”

To read the full Bank of America news release: