Jpmorgan

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s losses from risky derivatives bets widened to $4.4 billion in the second quarter, the bank announced. Originally pegged at $2 billion when the bank disclosed the blunder in May, the bad bets have renewed debates over financial regulations four years after the financial crisis, when risky trading on Wall Street helped bring the system to the brink. At an analysts meeting Friday morning, JPMorgan's chief financial officer added that year-to-date losses from the bad trades have reached $5.8 billion.

NEW YORK - Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is set to defend his bank and his reputation after JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s big trading blunder. Early Friday morning, Dimon will host a two-hour face-to-face meeting with analysts to talk about the bank's progress in unwinding big derivatives bets by a trader Wall Street dubbed the London Whale. Since JPMorgan revealed more than $2 billion in trading losses in May, estimates of how deep the losses could get have varied - including one estimate that it has surged to $9 billion.

Moody's Investors Service slashed the credit ratings of more than a dozen giant global banks amid worries that Europe's economic turmoil could slow both profit and growth. The downgrades, announced after the close of U.S. financial markets Thursday, included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. The move came as the 15 banks singled out by Moody's try to navigate through the European debt crisis, which could have a major effect on their trading businesses.

NEW YORK -- Stocks rallied following the federal government's report that home builders requested the most permits since September 2008. Major U.S. stock indexes were up about 1% in early trading on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 110 points, or 0.9%, to 12,852 shortly after the opening bell. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 13 points, or 1%, to 1,358. The Nasdaq was up 33 points, or 1.1%, to 2,928. The market rally came as the Group of 20 world leaders met in Mexico to discuss the protracted Eurozone crisis, two days after Greek voters chose a pro-bailout government that eased fears the country would be forced out of the euro common currency.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats and Republicans sparred over the need for tougher oversight of Wall Street as regulators and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon prepared to testify Tuesday about the bank's more than $2-billion trading loss. The hearing by the House Financial Services Committee started out much more sharply partisan than last week's hearing by the Senate Banking Committee, where Dimon was questioned about the loss. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the most important lesson of JPMorgan's loss had nothing to do with the "more than 400 rules" enacted by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. He said it showed that the regulatory system still was too complex -- something the 2010 overhaul did not address.

WASHINGTON - Facing more congressional heat about JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s huge trading loss, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said he did not mislead shareholders about the extent of the problems as a financial regulator revealed that the bank's public disclosures were under scrutiny. "We disclosed what we knew when we knew it," Dimon told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. It was the second time in less than a week that he testified on Capitol Hill about JPMorgan's more than $2-billion trading loss.

WASHINGTON -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Tuesday defiantly defended his lobbying against some new financial regulations as he faced tough questioning by lawmakers about the bank's huge trading loss. Appearing before a congressional committee for the second time in less than a week, Dimon again said the bank was sorry for the more than $2-billion loss. But he downplayed the consequences for the company and the financial system, saying JPMorgan soon would report a solid profit for the second quarter of the year.

WASHINGTON -- A key financial regulator said the investigation of the more than $2-billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co. has found the bank apparently has "serious risk management issues" that might go beyond the office responsible for the losses. "We do believe as a preliminary matter that there are apparent serious risk management weaknesses at the bank," Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is the main regulator for JPMorgan Chase's banking operations and is "continuing to examine the root causes for those failures and whether there are other weaknesses" outside the firm's chief investment office, which conducted the trades that led to the losses.

WASHINGTON - As JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon prepares for another day on the congressional hot seat this week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned lawmakers and regulators not to overreact to the bank's huge trading loss. "Hiding money in a mattress isn't a strategy for a growing, prosperous, economy, but that seems to be the road some want us to go down," Thomas Quaadman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, wrote on the business group's blog Monday.

Wall Street titan JPMorgan Chase & Co. is trying to torpedo a proposed Century City skyscraper that might compete with nearby office buildings owned by the bank, a labor union official alleged last week. State Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) intervened on behalf of unions with a letter to JPMorgan Chairman Jamie Dimon, asking him to stop the bank's asset management office from opposing the proposed 37-story Century City Center project at Avenue of the Stars at Constellation Boulevard.