$41.40
-0.53 (-1.26%)
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
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A financial holding Company whose activities are organized into six business segments: Investment Bank, Retail Financial Services, Card Services, Commercial Banking, Treasury & Securities Services and Asset Management.
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The hallmark of the downturn the past couple of years is that it keeps getting worse, much worse than most people seem to think is likely. Even many insiders at financial firms have decided their companies had gotten so cheap as to be compelling buys only to be wiped out as the next wave hit.
JP Morgan has been seen as a rock of stability, with a solid balance sheet, picking up bargains as other firms go down in flames. But, how solid can you consider a company to be when it has $87 trillion in derivatives on its books? That's a hundred times more than the government could come up with if it were to try to bail out JPM.
It can only be a lose-lose proposition. Either 1), JPM made the wrong bets, and it soon goes down in a crash the size of an asteroid strike. Or 2), it made the right bets. We already have an example of how that turns out. Goldman Sachs made the "right" bets, buying $20 billion of credit default swaps from AIG in 2007-2008. Very smart of them. Then, last September, AIG went bust, and Goldman's $20B went with it. Suddenly Goldman had to run to Warren Buffet for $5B in order to not breach their loan covenants. (I think this is one move Buffet will come to regret.) Anyway, imagine that JPM, by some miracle, actually made the right bets with its derivative portfolio. It's just not possible that its counterparties could pay up any significant amount of the "winning" bets. Whoever was making the losing bets is already worse than broke.
Check out the derivative situation for yourself. Thanks, Bulleye168, for this link:
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-152a.pdf
I am betting with real money that JPM is one of the next dominoes to fall. I just hope MY counterparties are able to pay up when the time comes.
As they say in the real world, you are dead wrong. JPM actually has been doing quite well and so has their stocks. They are still making a profit and actually don't appear to be affected as much as other companies. I hope you decide to cut your losses if you are selling short. I have been buying Citi, JPB, and BAC for about 2 months now and realize they are going to be here in ten years and my portfolio will be proud to say I stuck with them.
When JPMorgan Chase goes under i'm moving out to the wood.
JP Morgen never can go under the world will be in chaos. I will keep my investment on it and also the dividends
I own JPM stock and I have a JPM investment account with Chase Bank. It paid off as I lost only about 20% last year, while friends lost as much as 35% in their portfolios. JPM is one of the good banks. I got lucky. (I did buy all "A" stocks and bonds) They won't be wiped out - another wave or not.JPM just might be the strongest bank in America right now.
I should'v not put it on under perform. But I did. Might have to keep it there until the next downturn years from now.
Short Jamie Dimon? No thanks.
I took advantage of some low interest checks they offered last year ( 3% & 4% 3% transaction fee). obviously i wouldn't have been offered these rates if I didn't maintain a decent fico rating. But now Chase has decided I am not paying my account down quickly enough. So instead of 2% on my balance I can now start paying them 5% on the balance starting in August 2009.
If they are doing this to a bunch of their credit card customers this will throw some of them into default and may result in higher write offs for chase in the near term.