What happened

Shares of Bank of America (BAC 0.15%) were moving higher on Friday, up about 2.9% as of 1:10 p.m. ET. The stock price had gone up as much as 4.6% in the morning. Shares have fallen about 11% year to date.

The market was down across the board on Friday. The S&P 500 dropped 25 points (-0.6%), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 220 points (-0.7%), and the Nasdaq Composite was 108 points (-0.9%) lower at 1:10 p.m. ET.

So what

Bank of America bucked the overall downward trend mainly due to a strong earnings report issued by its rival megabank, JPMorgan Chase.

Investors were eagerly anticipating how this bellwether bank stock, the first major bank to report earnings following the March financial meltdown, performed in the volatile first quarter. JPMorgan not only beat earnings and revenue estimates, but also saw record revenue of $38.3 billion, up 25% year over year, led by a 49% increase in net interest income in the quarter.

Overall net income was up 15% year over year to $12.6 billion, or $4.10 per share, despite a 56% surge in provisions for credit losses. In addition, the return on common tangible equity jumped to 23% from 16% in the first quarter of 2022.

Average loans were up 6% for JPMorgan Chase, while average deposits were down 8%. Also, its common equity Tier 1 ratio, a measure of liquidity, improved to 13.8%, well above its regulatory requirement of 12.5%.

JPMorgan Chase's numbers no doubt instilled confidence in investors that the big banks were able to navigate the recent banking crisis. This helped Bank of America surge higher Friday.

Now what

Another positive development for B of A was a report from analysts at RBC Capital regarding the struggling commercial real estate market. RBC said it should be manageable for the top 20 banks because they have increasingly limited exposure to the market. RBC said the average exposure to the commercial real estate market for the top 20 banks was 11.2%, down from 12.2% a year ago and below the 18% industry average.

We'll gain much more insight into how Bank of America fared during the banking crisis when it reports first-quarter earnings on April 18.