Stories related to: JP Morgan Chase

What's next for Bear Stearns? A Wall Street institution for the better part of a century, it is now scrambling to find a buyer. Its best hope is JP Morgan, which provided a temporary lifeline yesterday along with the Fed. But other possible suitors include Citibank and HSBC, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a sign of the times, the Journal notes that Bear's single biggest asset might be its building—the Madison Avenue digs could fetch $1.2 billion. More »

Bear Sterns has reached out to rival JP Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for emergency funding to reassure investors concerned about the struggling investment bank's deteriorating liquidity, the Wall Street Journal reports. The move is a startling indicator of how hard the subprime virus has hit US credit markets and financial firms. More »

Home-equity loan defaults are soaring, the Wall Street Journal reports, as the trickle-down effect of the subprime mortgage crisis makes its way into what was once a source of big profits for lenders. JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo both escaped major writedowns on subprime mortgages gone bad, but already are feeling the pain from home-equity losses. More »

Commercial real estate could be the next victim of the current economic downturn, and if it is, expect it to cause another full-fledged crisis, the Wall Street Journal reports. Commercial real estate values could fall as much as 26% over the next 2 years, Goldman Sachs analysts predict, leading to another round of huge write-offs and creating "a significantly longer tail than subprime." More »

E*Trade Financial, stung by mortgage- and mortgage-backed securities market losses, is adding CEO to chairman Donald Layton's duties. The company may be dolling itself up for a possible sale by polishing its tarnished image, the Wall Street Journal reports. Since Layton, 57, became chairman in November, the brokerage has rebounded from a $1.7 billion fourth-quarter loss. More »

Vicki Iseman is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to John McCain’s associations with lobbyists, the Washington Post reports. McCain targets special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are or have been lobbyists representing some of the country’s biggest corporations. Top adviser Charles Black currently numbers GM, JPMorgan, and AT&T among his clients. More »

Stocks showed mixed results today, as the Dow rallied and then teetered to a loss off lingering fears of recession. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq posted moderate gains buoyed by strong showings by Amazon, Google, Apple, and Research in Motion, Marketwatch reports. The Nasdaq gained 11.82 to end at 2,304.85; the Dow fell 64.87 to 12,181.32, and the S&P 500 dropped 5.62 to 1,331.29. More »

Beleaguered student loan provider Sallie Mae yesterday dropped its $900 million lawsuit against the onetime suitors who bailed on a $25.3 billion buyout after the credit crunch caused would-be investors to walk away, reports the Washington Post . By agreeing not to seek the penalty from investment firm JC Flowers and several partners, Sallie Mae secured $31 billion in financing. More »

After largely dodging the subprime bullet that tore through most of Wall Street’s big banks, JP Morgan Chase is looking to make a move, the Wall Street Journal reports. Buoyed by three years of cost cutting and refocusing its business, Morgan has nearly doubled its mortgage market, is flush with cash, and eager to expand through acquisition. More »

Subprime mortgage writedowns of $1.3 billion cut deeply into better-than-expected revenue gains at JP Morgan Chase in the fourth quarter, leaving the nation’s third-largest bank with net income of $2.97 billion, or 86 cents per share, a 34% drop from a year ago, reports Bloomberg. The writedown is a pittance compared to Citigroup’s $18.1 billion announced yesterday. More »

Former British PM Tony Blair will advise JPMorgan Chase on global politics, and pick up a check in the neighborhood of $1 million for his part-time trouble. Blair will keep his current job as the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East, reports the Times of London, but it's hardly his first cash cow: he's inked a $10 million deal for his memoirs and is cleaning up with speaking engagements. More »

Goldman Sachs has some bad news for Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and JPMorgan Chase: An analyst predicts even bigger fourth-quarter writedowns for all three firms than they've already cottoned to, thanks to continued exposure to collateralized debt. The losses will be “significantly larger than investors are anticipating.” How large is that? Try a combined $33.6 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports.   More »

It’s already looking like an iffy New Year for many credit-card holders: the number of Americans falling behind on their payments spiked sharply this year and analysts don’t expect 2008 to be much brighter. The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late surged 26% in October to $17.3 million, the AP found. Defaults—when lenders give up and write off the debt—jumped 18% to almost $961million. More »

The three banks charged by Treasury with setting up a fund to bail out investments threatened by the subprime mess are abandoning the project, the Wall Street Journal reports. Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase had been working since September on the plan to rescue structured investment vehicles, but they have struggled to raise money for the project. More »

The slowing economy and financing costs that have more than doubled since June because of the subprime collapse could ice the pace of mergers and acquisitions in 2008, Bloomberg reports. After a record $3.9 trillion in deals in 2007, analysts predict transaction value could plummet 20%. "The mega-LBO is dead,'' says an ABN Amro takeover expert. More »

Stocks gained slightly after the Fed's decision to join four other central banks in pumping cash into the global financial system. Following yesterday's plunge of nearly 300 points after the Fed cut interest rates by only a quarter-point, the Dow gained 41.13 to close at 13,473.90. The Nasdaq was up 18.79 to 2,671.14, while the S&P tacked on 8.95 to close at 1,486.60. More »

Stocks fell again today after JPMorgan Chase predicted that profits would drop at big brokerages. Meanwhile, lower oil prices lowered earning prospects for energy companies, reports Bloomberg. "Until credit loosens up, you can't get a solid footing in the market," says a manager. The Dow was down 65.84 to 13,248.73, the Nasdaq 17.3 to 2,619.83, and the S&P 500 9.63 to 1,462.79. More »

The Dow closed below 13,000 today after seesawing on bad news from the financial sector and falling oil prices. The Dow finished at 12,987.55, down 55.19, after E*Trade said further mortgage-related write-downs might come—and its shares dropped 56%. The Nasdaq slid 43.81 to close at 2,584.13, and the S&P 500 dropped 14.52 to 1,439.18. More »

The country’s top three banks have finalized agreements for the $75 billion superfund they hope will cushion further blows to the credit market, reports the NY Times. After nearly two months of haggling, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase agreed to simpler conditions than outlined in the fund’s proposals, but some analysts still insist the fund won’t succeed. More »

Citigroup and other major banks are banding together to create a $100-billion fund to buy back shaky mortgage securities in order to contain the threat of their undermining the markets and hurting the economy. The unprecedented project, pooling money from banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America, has been hatched in cooperation with the Treasury Department, the Wall Street Journal reports. More »