Receiving Wide Coverage ...
A Crack in the ‘Fortress’: By now, you’ve probably heard about JPMorgan Chase’s revelation of a $2 billion trading loss in the Chief Investment Office (home of the notorious “London Whale”) and CEO Jamie Dimon’s display of contrition in a hastily scheduled conference call. It probably occurred to you that this played right into the hands of a whole bunch of pundits out there who want to strengthen regulation, even before you read Dimon’s quote that it “plays right into the hands of a whole bunch of pundits out there." It may also have occurred to you before any journalist started typing that the “egregious” (Dimon’s oft-quoted descriptor) blunder undermines his image as the exceptional CEO of the exceptional large bank with the exceptional “fortress balance sheet,” and that the news is especially awkward for JPMorgan given that a month ago Dimon had dismissed all the news reports about the Whale’s risk-taking as “a tempest in a teapot.” Not to mention the CEO’s increasingly cocky public pronouncements about overreaching regulators and poor put-upon bankers. You may have even spent some time trying to piece together what exactly went wrong from the details that JPMorgan disclosed and the previous market chatter about CIO trader Bruno Iksil’s position on an index of corporate credit default swaps. To help you navigate the sea of media coverage, we’re going to break it down for you by theme. Here goes.
The basic overviews: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times
Ammo for the reformers: Somewhere, Paul Volcker (you know, the guy Dimon dissed on television a few months ago) is saying “muahahaha.” New York Times, FT “Lex” column, FT Business blog
Behold, the god who bleeds: Not even Dimon’s JPM is infallible. Wall Street Journal news story and “Heard on the Street” column
Drill-downs on the troublesome trades: Wall Street Journal, FT Alphaville blog, Reuters' Felix Salmon, Dealbreaker's Matt Levine.
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