Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Not the Onion: "JPMorgan bet against itself in "Whale" trade" (JPM)

Okay kids, this has gotten stupid. The banks are too large.
Time, maybe, to dissolve the corporation and revert to a partnership structure. Try playing (allowing) these games in an unlimited liability company and see how long it is before you're on permanent dumpster-diving detail.
From Reuters:
There is a new twist in the London Whale trading scandal that cost JPMorgan Chase $6.2 billion in trading losses last year. Some of the firm's own traders bet against the very derivatives positions placed by its chief investment office, said three people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations, which launched an inquiry into the trading loss last fall, is looking into the how different divisions of the bank wound up on opposite sides of the same trade, said one of the people familiar with the matter.

The committee is expected to release a report on its investigation in the next few weeks.
The people familiar with the situation did not comment on the dollar value of the opposing trades placed by JPMorgan Chase & Co's (JPM.N) investment bank traders, which was much smaller than the total positions put on by the CIO.

The intra-bank trading was not mentioned in a 129-page report JPMorgan released on January 16, which chronicled some of the bank's risk management failures. The scandal has led to a number of management changes at JPMorgan and has sullied CEO Jamie Dimon's image as a hands-on risk manager....MORE