NEW YORK: The legal legacy of the housing bust weighed on Bank of America earnings Wednesday, resulting in a quarterly loss even as some operating units posted solid results.

The US banking giant lost $276m for the first quarter, with the biggest drag coming from $6 billion to settle a pile of lawsuits dealing mostly with BofA’s sale of mortgage-backed securities.

The loss was its first since the second quarter of 2011.

“The cost of resolving more of our mortgage issues hurt our earnings this quarter,” said chief executive Brian Moynihan.

“But the earnings power of our business and customer strategy generated solid results, and we continued to return excess capital to our shareholders.” BofA’s results translated to a loss of five cents per share, compared with analyst projections for a five cent per share profit.