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Jaimie Dimon tells his crew they're to look for the white whale. Who on American Pequod doesn't want to follow and grab that gold coin Ahab/Dimon hammered onto the mask.
JPMorgan’s Ahab has met his Moby Dick. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has toiled at length to build a bank strong enough to withstand the greatest of storms. The $2 billion hedging hit the bank disclosed late on Thursday will put JPMorgan to the test. Its capital buffers may be safe for now, but the ramifications are apt to be broader.
The losses come from the bank’s chief investment office. That’s part of the core treasury function at JPMorgan, responsible for managing the entire firm’s balance sheet. That it was being “poorly monitored,” as Dimon conceded, is even more worrying than the discovery of a random rogue trader.
The CIO has made news of late because of reports that one of its overseas traders, Bruno Iksil, was taking such large positions in a credit index to hedge JPMorgan’s risk that he was distorting the market. Rivals labeled him the London whale. Dimon declined to discuss specifics.
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