These pluses seem to outweigh the potential losses BOA will have to absorb in bad mortgage loans that could mean significant write-downs of assets. Sean Egan of Egan-Jones Rating Co., told Bloomberg that a 5% write down of Countrywide's mortgage portfolio could translate to $10 billion in losses or half the bank's $21 billion profit in 2006. Analyst Richard Bove, who has a buy rating on Bank of America, told Bloomberg that regulators may absorb some of the losses because Countrywide's bank is covered by FDIC insurance, and if Countrywide went bankrupt, FDIC's obligations would be much higher.

For helping to bail out Countrywide, BOA may even be able to get relief from the 10% federal cap on the amount of deposits that a bank can hold after a merger or acquisition, George Kaufman, a Loyola University finance professor told Bloomberg. That's critical to the deal, because BOA's share of U.S. deposits is 9.88%, according to Federal Reserve estimates, and Countrywide's bank deposits could send BOA over the top.

All in all, even with the potential mortgage portfolio losses from bad loans, this deal looks like a good one for BOA. It jumps from almost no presence in the mortgage market to a leader overnight. It gives BOA access to top infrastructure and technology. In addition, BOA gets a booming loan servicing business with continuing cash flow servicing $1.4 trillion in mortgage loans and the names of all the people holding those mortgages. Think about how much new business BOA may be able to generate promoting its other products as it sends out those monthly bills.

Lita Epstein has written more than 20 books including "Trading for Dummies" and "Reading Financial Reports for Dummies."