The JPMorgan Chase Whale Trades

Book excerpt: JPMorgan Chase & Company is the largest financial holding company in the United States, with $2.4 trillion in assets. It is also the largest derivatives dealer in the world and the largest single participant in world credit derivatives markets. JPMorgan Chase has consistently portrayed itself as an expert in risk management with a "fortress balance sheet" that ensures taxpayers have nothing to fear from its banking activities, including its extensive dealing in derivatives. But in early 2012, the bank's Chief Investment Office (CIO), which is charged with managing $350 billion in excess deposits, placed a massive bet on a complex set of synthetic credit derivatives that, in 2012, lost at least $6.2 billion. The CIO's losses were the result of the so-called "London Whale" trades executed by traders in its London office; trades so large in size that they roiled world credit markets. This book provides an overview and background of the investigation of derivatives risks and abuses relating to the JPMorgan Chase Whale traders with accompanying testimony given before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.