The new CEO of Bank of America, Brian Moynihan began his first day on the job today. In his speech to shareholders, he announced that Bank of America was continuing to recover from the financial crisis but will remain cautious even as it expects to grow in 2010.

Moynihan takes over at time when the bank faces continued loan losses in the billions of dollars. It lost more than $2.2 billion in the third quarter as bad debt kept rising with consumers still struggling to pay their bills. Investors will hear if there’s been any improvement when the bank reports its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 20.

While credit delinquencies remain at historic highs, Moynihan said that the losses “do appear to be stabilizing.”

Bank of America has about 53 million relationships with customers, including individual consumers and businesses. That breadth helps make BofA particularly vulnerable to high unemployment.

Moynihan told the bankers that the economy has bottomed and that the bank is forecasting global growth of more than 4 percent in 2010. Growth in U.S. gross domestic product will be above 3 percent, he said.

“It’s just great to be in the year 2010,” Moynihan said. “Actually, it is great to be anywhere other than where we were as a company a year ago.”