JPMorgan's $6 Billion Case of Lyme Disease

By Dean Baker: In a front page news analysis the NYT told readers that: "... but these days the problem for Europe may be that it has not had — and may not have — its own Lehman Brothers, at least in the sense that Lehman shocked Americans to take divisive and expensive steps to repair the damage."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said JPMorgan Chase's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss may show that the nation's largest banks are too big to manage. JPMorgan revealed last month that its London office had executed a failed hedging strategy that has so far produced at least $2 billion in trading losses. The news has rattled Wall Street and Washington and raised questions about whether banks are still taking too many risks following the 2007-2009 financial crisis. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said JPMorgan Chase's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss may show that the nation's largest banks are too big to manage. JPMorgan revealed last month that its London office had executed a failed hedging strategy that has so far produced at least $2 billion in trading losses. The news has rattled Wall Street and Washington and raised questions about whether banks are still taking too many risks following the 2007-2009 financial crisis. ...

Jamie Dimon will be on Capitol Hill on Wednesday testifying about massive trading losses at the nation's biggest bank. The CEO of JPMorgan Chase is expected to apologize for a hedging strategy that led to a multibillion-dollar loss. In prepared remarks, Dimon says despite those losses, the bank's overall balance sheet remains solid.

Great front page from the NYT sports section today. Whether you blame the players for cheating or the writers for being too high-and-mighty to recognize their achievements, baseball now has an empty space in its history, which stinks. h/t Kevin Negandhi

By Brian L. Wilson:JP Morgan (JPM) is a bank with about $2.3 trillion in assets, and its current tangible book value is just under $200 billion. If you multiply number of shares outstanding (3.81 billion) by the price target implied in the title ($50/share), you come to a market cap of $190.5 billion.

The New York Times ran a front-page story today arguing that the Dartmouth Atlas project -- which is the ongoing research project associated with the finding that we pay a lot of money for health care that doesn't do us any good -- is methodologically unsound.