In financial news from the US, JP Morgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States of America has lost $2 billion in the past month and a half. That is about KES 167 billion, 85% of the net assets of Kenya’s largest bank by customer base, Equity Bank. In two weeks!
JPMorgan Chase, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.
The company’s stock plunged almost 7 percent in after-hours trading after the loss was announced. Other bank stocks, including Citigroup and Bank of America, suffered heavy losses as well.
“The portfolio has proved to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than we thought,” CEO Jamie Dimon told reporters. “There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment.”
The trading loss is an embarrassment for a bank that came through the 2008 financial crisis in much better health than its peers. It kept clear of risky investments that hurt many other banks.
The loss came in a portfolio of the complex financial instruments known as derivatives, and in a division of JPMorgan designed to help control its exposure to risk in the financial markets and invest excess money in its corporate treasury.
Bloomberg News reported in April that a single JPMorgan trader in London, known in the bond market as “the London whale,” was making such large trades that he was moving prices in the $10 trillion market.
Dimon said the losses were “somewhat related” to that story, but seemed to suggest that the problem was broader. Dimon also said the company had “acted too defensively,” and should have looked into the division more closely.
Partly because of the $2 billion trading loss, JPMorgan said it expects a loss of $800 million this quarter for a segment of its business known as corporate and private equity. It had planned on a profit for the segment of $200 million.
The loss is expected to hurt JPMorgan’s overall earnings for the second quarter, which ends June 30. Dimon apologized for the losses, which he said occurred since the first quarter, which ended March 31.
“We will admit it, we will learn from it, we will fix it, and we will move on,” he said. Dimon spoke in a hastily scheduled conference call with stock analysts. Reporters were allowed to listen.
KES 167 billion is a lot of money. A lot. It is the amount that thirteen Safaricoms would gather as net profit assuming each made KES 12.63 billion as it did this year (click here to read the Safaricom results). This is over thirteen times the value that listed investment company Centum has in its portfolio and can buy thirteen thousand 4 bed Wisteria maisonettes at Edenville off Kiambu Road and thirteen thousand Toyota Premios, one for each home. And to think financial firms would be more careful after the global financial crisis in which many of them collapsed!