Another big bank reports earnings today, and there are an additional couple of billion of dollars in bad debt. Once again, its stock is poised to rise as investors bet that the worst is behind us.

Haven't we seen this movie before?

The fourth quarter of last year was once seen as the time for the big banks to mark down their portfolios tied to subprime mortgages. For investors grasping at any sign of hope in the financial sector, the first quarter is apparently the new fourth quarter.

Bank of America is the latest to report a big write-down, following large hits reported last week by Citigroup and others.

The bank wrote down $1.91 billion in the first quarter, after more than $5 billion of the same in the fourth quarter. Some $1.47 billion of the most recent hit was collateralized-debt obligations, and $439 million was on leveraged loans used for deals. Bank of America also had trading losses of $1.31 billion.

As a result, its earnings tumbled 77 percent, to $1.21 billion, or 23 cents per share, compared with $5.26 billion, or $1.16 per share, in the quarter a year earlier. The results fell short of analysts' estimates.

Net revenue, or revenue after interest expenses, slumped 6.3 percent to $17 billion.

Unlike Citigroup, however, Bank of America is seeing its stock price fall after its first-quarter report, down nearly 3 percent in morning trading.

Still, there were some bright spots. Revenue at the bank's consumer business rose 17 percent.

"Our earnings power from our core business activities is strong and growing," Ken Lewis, Bank of America's chief executive, said. "We are bringing innovative new products to market, taking market share, and expanding customer relationships across the company. Nevertheless, we remain concerned about the health of the consumer given the prolonged housing slump, subprime issues, employment levels and higher fuel and food prices."

The challenge for Bank of America is that the housing crisis threatens to get worse just as the bank is going deeper into it. The bank still plans to complete its $4 billion acquisition of Countrywide Financial, which will make it the largest mortgage lender in the country.

"The decline in housing prices has to be solved for things to get better,'' Chris Hagedorn, portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management, told Bloomberg News before the earnings report. "In terms of the maximum point of pain, I don't see we're there yet."