Bank of America Corp. cut its quarterly dividend in half to 32 cents per share and announced plans to raise $10 billion in capital from common stock offerings after its third-quarter earnings dropped 68 percent, the Baltimore Business Journal reported.

“These are the most difficult times for financial institutions that I have experienced in my 39 years of banking,” said Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis. “We believe it is prudent to raise capital to very substantial levels in this uncertain environment.”

The quarterly results announcement, which is two weeks earlier than planned, comes after Bank of America said in September that it would acquire Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. for $50 billion. In July, the banking giant also bought Countrywide Financial Group, the largest U.S. home lender, for about $2.5 billion, Bloomberg reported.

According to Bloomberg, Lewis assured investors in July that the bank didn’t need to cut its dividend or raise capital, but after the changes in economic conditions during the past 45 days, Lewis admitted, “The recession is going to be a little deeper than we thought.”

Bank of America’s third-quarter profits were $1.18 billion, or 15 cents per share, compared with $3.7 billion, or 82 cents per share, a year ago. Net interest income was up 33 percent to $11.92 billion from $8.99 billion in third quarter 2007. Noninterest income rose 7 percent to $7.98 billion.

However, the company had a $630 million charge for providing support to cash funds and losses of $313 million related to auction-rate securities.