Dimon’s Hedges Masks ‘Anything-Goes’ Trades, Merkley Says
U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, the Oregon Democrat pushing for tighter restrictions on banks’ bets with their own money through so-called proprietary trading, said JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) took too much risk through a strategy the company described as hedging.
“Portfolio hedging is just a name for saying anything goes, and we’ll continue proprietary trading,” Merkley said in an interview today on Bloomberg Television.
JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon is scheduled to testify today before the Senate Banking Committee to discuss a loss of more than $2 billion on credit derivatives. Dimon has said the New York-based bank has the financial strength to withstand the loss and that regulation such as the so-called Volcker rule, designed to limit banks’ wagers, could limit economic growth.
“I want to know whether or not he is determined to continue pressing for loopholes in the Volcker rule so he can continue proprietary trading or whether he recognizes that really is a role for hedge funds that shouldn’t be subsidized by American taxpayers,” Merkley said. “Here is a bank that has this enormous amount of money and instead of making loans to businesses, they are investing it through London in proprietary trading.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Zachary Tracer in New York at ztracer1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Kraut at dkraut2@bloomberg.net
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon
Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, talks about today’s Senate Banking Committee testimony by JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. Merkley speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." William Cohan, author of "Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World" and a Bloomberg View columnist, also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)
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