Jpmorgan Chase Whale Trades

JPMorgan Chase & Company is the largest financial holding company in the United States, with $2.4 trillion in assets. It is also the largest derivatives dealer in the world and the largest single participant in world credit derivatives markets. JPMorgan Chase has consistently portrayed itself as an expert in risk management with a "fortress balance sheet" that ensures taxpayers have nothing to fear from its banking activities, including its extensive dealing in derivatives. But in early 2012, the bank's Chief Investment Office (CIO), which is charged with managing $350 billion in excess deposits, placed a massive bet on a complex set of synthetic credit derivatives that, in 2012, lost at least $6.2 billion. The CIO's losses were the result of the so-called "London Whale" trades executed by traders in its London office; trades so large in size that they roiled world credit markets. This book provides an overview and background of the investigation of derivatives risks and abuses relating to the JPMorgan Chase Whale traders with accompanying testimony given before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

"The JPMorgan Chase whale trades provide a startling and instructive case history of how synthetic credit derivatives have become a multi-billion dollar source of risk within the U.S. banking system. They also demonstrate how inadequate derivative valuation practices enabled traders to hide substantial losses for months at a time; lax hedging practices obscured whether derivatives were being used to offset risk or take risk; risk limit breaches were routinely disregarded; risk evaluation models were manipulated to downplay risk; inadequate regulatory oversight was too easily dodged or stonewalled; and derivative trading and financial results were misrepresented to investors, regulators, policymakers, and the taxpaying public who, when banks lose big, may be required to finance multi-billion-dollar bailouts."--Pg. 7.

JPMorgan Chase & Company is the largest financial holding company in the U.S., with $2.4 trillion in assets. It is also the largest derivatives dealer in the world and the largest single participant in world credit derivatives markets. Its principal bank subsidiary, JPMorgan Chase Bank, is the largest U.S. bank. JPMorgan Chase has consistently portrayed itself as an expert in risk management with a “fortress balance sheet†that ensures taxpayers have nothing to fear from its banking activities, including its extensive dealing in derivatives. But in early 2012, the bank's Chief Investment Office (CIO), which manages $350 billion in excess deposits, placed a massive bet on a complex set of synthetic credit derivatives that, in 2012, lost at least $6.2 billion. The CIO's losses were the result of the so-called “London Whale†trades executed by traders in its London office -- trades so large in size that they roiled world credit markets. The magnitude of the losses shocked the investing public and drew attention to the CIO which was found, in addition to its conservative investments, to be bankrolling high stakes, high risk credit derivative trades that were unknown to its regulators. This is the report of a U.S. Senate investigation into the history of JPMorgan Chase “Whale Trades.†Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.

In the midst of the most disastrous economic climate of Wall Street’s history, one executive has weathered the storm more deftly than any other: Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. In 2008, while Dimon’s competitors watched their companies crumble, JPMorgan not only survived, it made an astonishing $5 billion profit. Dimon’s continued triumph in the face of an industry-wide meltdown has made him a paragon of finance. In Last Man Standing, award-winning journalist Duff McDonald provides an unprecedented and deeply personal look at the extraordinary figure behind JPMorgan’s success. Using countless hours of interviews with Dimon and his full circle of friends, family, and colleagues, this definitive biography is by far the most comprehensive portrait of the man known as the Savior of Wall Street. Now, in an updated prologue, McDonald offers insight into the future of Wall Street and how Dimon will overcome the challenge of aggressive new regulation from Washington—and how he plans to continue to thrive as the world’s preeminent banker.