JPMorgan Chase

• Obama budget defeated 414-0 (Washington Times) yes, the Democrats too...
• German Central Banker: ECB Loans Only Buy Time (AP)
• Baku grants Israel use of its air bases (Jerusalem Times)
• Japan May Understate Deflation, Hampering BOJ, Economist Says (Bloomberg)
• BRICS flay West over IMF reform, monetary policy (Reuters)
• Five Portugal Lenders Downgraded by Moody’s (Bloomberg)
• SEC Registration Captures More Hedge Fund Advisers (Bloomberg)
• EU Nears One-Year Boost in Rescue Fund to $1.3 Trillion (Bloomberg)
• Consumers plot emergency oil release as Saudi decries high prices (Reuters)
• Japan Plans to Draft Stopgap Budget for First Time in 14 Years (Bloomberg)

Today's primetime popcorn event is about to begin: as reported earlier, the House Financial Services Committee will hold an oversight and investigations hearing on the collapse of MF Global, beginning at 3 pm. The hearing will focus on the decisions during the company's final days that led to the disappearance of up to $1.6 billion in customer funds. The party line is that "The investigation aims to "not only to find out where the money went but to identify what went wrong in order to prevent this from happening again," Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) said." What instead will happen is that a bunch of politicians will huff and puff, and nothing will happen once again, because to take down Corzine, would mean to start eating away at the entire rotten core of today's captured political system, which has and always will be run out of Wall Street. It will also be amusing to listen to Edith O’Brien plead the Fif

Today at 2 PM, the House Financial Services Committee will hold its third hearing (and the fifth overall) on the ever more confounding topic of MF Global, its bankruptcy, and its vaporized client funds, which amount to about $1.6 billion at last check. And while Jon Corzine will not be there, virtually everyone else from the firm who can promise that said vaporitzation of funds was merely a softward glitch and not the fault of anyone in particular, will be present, from the General Counsel, to the CFO, to the Deputy General Counsel of JPMorgan, all the way to Edith O'Brien, assistant treasurer of MF Global, who is expected to plead the Fifth. One wonders why if there is nothing to hide, but that is the topic of another discussion. And as exposed last week by the WSJ, this hearing will be particularly interesting as now it has been made clear that Corzine specifically gave the order to transfer funds to JPM's account. As NJ.com summarizes: "Per JC’s direct instructions." This line, contained in an email that an MF Global finance official sent to explain a $200 million transfer to JPMorgan Chase from an MF Global account containing customer funds, will be a focal point of a congressional hearing today into the futures firm’s collapse. The email, disclosed in a congressional memo circulated Friday, has raised questions about whether the former governor and CEO of MF Global knew customer money was being used to plug holes in the firm’s finances as it plunged into bankruptcy during the last week of October. As much as $1.6 billion of client funds has gone missing, according to a trustee liquidating the futures firm."

Few men have a resume quite like Jon Corzine.  Not only has Corzine served in the U.S. Senate and been governor of New Jersey, he has also been the CEO of Goldman Sachs and the recently imploded brokerage firm MF Global.   The insider blood filtrated through cronyism and the endless squandering of the public dime flows heavily through his veins. When MF Global went belly up back in the fall, Corzine was finally revealed for the inept, overly connected bureaucrat he really is.  Corruption seemingly follows the former Senator, Governor, and banker like shadows on a sunny day.  Earlier this week, New Jersey was declared the least corruptible state in the union much to the surprise of, well, everyone.  But as the great Jonathan Weil pointed out, the methodology in the study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity was horribly flawed.

UPDATE: Bloomberg TV news of the 'smoking gun' added

The only thing that could top today's epic market insanity and hilarity, would be that Corzine is himself about to be Corzined. Just released from Bloomberg:

MF GLOBAL'S CORZINE ORDERED FUNDS MOVED TO JPMORGAN, MEMO SAYS
CORZINE'S `DIRECT INSTRUCTIONS' CITED BY CONGRESSIONAL PANEL
MF GLOBAL TRANSFER WAS USED TO COVER OVERDRAFT, PANEL SAYS
MF GLOBAL FINDINGS CITED IN MEMO OBTAINED BY BLOOMBERG NEWS

And so we can now add perjury to felony embezzlement. Which means we now have to wait to find just which MF'er (and JPM'er) will be given a promise of untold millions if they only get Fab Tourred for a few years, and spend 5-7 in minimum security state prison instead of brave Jonny.

This would ordinarily qualify for the weekly piece of Friday humor, if only it wasn't too real. Bloomberg reports that everyone's favorite Federal Reserve overseer - JPMorgan Chase - is being sued by a trader who says he accepted a contract from the investment bank because a typographical error made him believe he would be paid 10 times what was actually offered. "Kai Herbert, a Switzerland-based currency trader, is suing JPMorgan for about 580,000 pounds ($920,000), his lawyers said at a trial in London this week. The original contract said Herbert’s annual pay would be 24 million rand ($3.1 million). JPMorgan blamed the mistake on a typographical error and said the figure should have been 2.4 million rand, according to court documents." Ok, so the guy is an idiot and somehow never understood what he was getting paid until after he looked at the contract. What people really want to know is if he pulled an Alex Hope and spent more than his entire post-typo  paycheck on a bottle of champagne at Zurich's douchiest night club. In other news, bankers everywhere are trying to track down their employment contracts to see if they are "owed" far more than they are getting due to confusion between decimal and '000s commas.

• More HFT Posturing: SEC Probes Rapid Trading (WSJ)
• Fed’s Bullard Says Monetary Policy May Be at Turning Point (Bloomberg)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Hosts Global Gathering on Easy Money (WSJ)
• Dublin ‘hopeful’ ECB will approve bond deal (FT)
• EU Proposes a Beefed-Up Permanent Bailout Fund (WSJ)
• Portugal Town Halls Face Default Amid $12 Billion Debt (Bloomberg)
• Hidden Fund Fees Means U.K. Investors Pay Double US Rates (Bloomberg)
• Europe Weighs Trade Probes Amid Beijing Threats (WSJ)
• Bank of Japan Stimulus Row Fueled by Kono’s Nomination (Bloomberg)

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is covered in a long profile by Roger Lowenstein in the Atlantic. The sympathetic account takes the reader blow-by-blow through the criticism that he has received from virtually all quarters during his tenure as Fed chair. What Lowenstein hones in on are the reviews and criticisms of Bernanke’s performance in “resurrecting the economy” — the interest rate policy, his interpretation of the dual mandate, quantitative easing, Operation Twist, etc. But for a piece that clocks in at 8,287 words, Lowenstein pays scant attention to the emergency actions taken to save the financial system itself.

Today, the metals space is abuzz with a CFTC "comment letter" posted on its website by an alleged "current JPM employee." There is only one problem - this letter is either a complete fraud or simply a total mockery, as it provides absolutely nothing new, and merely regurgitates existing manipulation claims already out in the public domain, and backed by precisely zero evidence. How about attaching a signed trade confirm, or a daily internal P&L report, or even a blotter entry? No? Because they don't exist? Needless to say, anyone can submit such an alleged insider letter, and since there is no name associated to it, we would advise everyone to merely enjoy this a prank attempt. Unfortunately, what more such repeated faux "whistleblower letters", which are likely forthcoming, from other "current JPM employees" will do is simply dilute the effect of any real such disclosure that may come in the future. For that purpose, we strongly caution anyone who considers submitting such disinformation attempts from doing so as it will merely impair and discourage any just intent of validated and justified whistleblowing, either at JPM or elsewhere.

Minutes ago on CNBC, Jim Cramer announced that Greg Smith will never get a job on Wall Street again as "one never goes to the press. Ever." Naturally, the assumption is that the secrets of Wall Street's dirty clothing are supposed to stay inside the family, or else one may wake up with a horsehead in their bed. There is one small problem with that. Now that compensations on Wall Street have plunged, and terminations are set for the biggest spike since the Lehman collapse, the opportunity cost to defect from the club has also collapsed. And if anything, Greg Smith's NYT OpEd has shown that it is not only ok to go to the press, but is in fact cool. So what happens next? Well, as the following Reuters article reports, 'whistleblowing' over corrupt and criminal practices on Wall Street is suddenly becoming the next growth industry. Yes - people may get 'priced out' of the industry, but since the industry will likely fire you regardless in the "New Normal" where fundamentals don't matter, and where the only thing that does matter is the H.4.1 statement (as Zero Hedge incidentally pointed out back in early 2010), why not expose some of the dirt that has been shovelled deep under the coach, and get paid some serious cash while doing it?

• Euro zone formally approves 2nd Greek bailout: statement (Reuters)
• In a First, Europeans Act to Suspend Aid to Hungary Unless It Cuts Deficit (NYT)
• UK Chancellor Looks at 100-Year Gilt (FT) - What? No Consols?
• Hilsenrath: Fed's Outlook a Tad Sunnier - (WSJ)
• Banks Shored Up By Stress Test Success (FT)
• U.S. dangles secret data for Russia missile shield approval (Reuters)
• Wen Warns of Second China Cultural Revolution Without Reform (Bloomberg)
• Wen Says Yuan May Be Near Equilibrium as Gains Stall (Bloomberg)
• Merkel Says Europe Is ‘Good Way’ Up Mountain, Not Over It (Bloomberg)

And the real lesson, dear friends, is that the good old USA is a subprime nation

Update: And so they come storming in, as the WSJ reports that Bank of America is the next to frontrun the Fed's public announcement, and announce it passed the stress test. However, unlike JPM it says it has not asked for new buybacks, or dividend increases. No surprise there.

There was a time when banks would at least pretend to pay lip service to the Fed. Those days are gone. Two days before the Fed is scheduled to release stress test results, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon has decided to show the folks at Liberty 33, but more importantly the world, that it is "good enough" and has proceeded with announcing a $0.05 dividend hike as well as a $15 billion stock buyback (in effect increasing its leverage further by reducing its statutory equity). Since we are now obviously replaying the entire credit crisis, from beginning to end, must as well go all in. Now - who's next? And perhaps just as importantly, who isn't.

Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Documents Released, Read Them Here

So Greece has been saved – is that right? Well according to ISDA (the International Swaps and Derivatives Association) a “Restructuring Credit Event has occurred with respect to the Hellenic Republic” which in the vernacular means the Greeks are bust; tell us something we don’t know! The importance of this statement is that credit default swaps (CDS) on Greek debt are now triggered and holders will have their losses made good. There were any number of scurrilous rumours that ISDA would not declare a credit event to preclude their illustrious members from paying out, but when the net downside of $3 billion needs to be shared out amongst the likes of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, UBS, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, then a quick whip round in the bar after close of business and the jobs a good’un.