Jamie Dimon

In an interview with Italian newspaper Milan Finanza on Saturday, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that he could lose up to $5 billion from the firm's exposure to the PIIGS countries. As Reuters reports, "Dimon said the bank was exposed to the five countries (PIIGS) to the tune of around $15 billion. "We fear we could lose up to $5 billion ... We hope the worst won't happen, but even if it did happen, I wouldn't be pulling my hair out," he said. Dimon said Europe was the worst problem for the banking sector. "But the EU and euro are solid even if the states will have to be financially responsible and do all they can to develop common social policies," he said." While it is admirable of JPMorgan to disclose some of its dirty laundry, as this was a topic that received hardly any mention in the firm's prepared quarterly release, and is predicated surely by the fact that its Basel III Tier 1 Common of $122 billion dwarfs this possible impairment, there are some questions left open. Such as what happens if and when Greek CDS, now most likely before March 20, were triggered? And the logical follow up - what happens when Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy, and who knows who else (Hungary?) follow suit and decide that a coercive restructuring is actually not suicidal, even though it most certainly is once a given threshold is reached. In other words, how long can Europe tolerate the same two-tiered sovereign debt market that S&P warned about so explicitly yesterday? Finally what happens to JPM's Tier 1 Common when the European dominos impact not only the directly exposed PIIGS nations, and specifically their bonds, but all those other banks, insurance and reinsurance companies, whose current viability makes up the balance of JPM's remaining $117 billion in Tier 1? Because in its essence, stating that JPM is "fine" even if Europe were to collapse is analogous to Goldman telling Congress it would collect on its AIG CDS if and when the CDS market were to implode absent the government bailout of AIG, which itself was accountable for over $2 trillion of the entire CDS market itself.

If JPM, which just launched the financials earnings onslaught by first reporting Q4 results, is any indication, it will not be pretty for the financial sector which has seen dramatic moves higher in the past several weeks, because as Jamie Dimon says, Q4 was "Modestly Disappointing." The reason: a top line miss, and a continuing contraction in capital markets leading to yet another decline in Investment Banking results. Also, what DVA giveth, DVA taketh away, and with CDS tightening in the quarter, DVA resulted in a $567 million loss in the quarter. Yet even with the DVA impact exclusion, revenue, which was reported at $21.47 billion would still have missed estimates of $22.56 billion. Finally, what would a quarter be if a bank did not reduce its loan loss allowance and release even more reserves, no matter how the market is actually doing: JPM did just that in its mortgage banking division, lowering its net loan loss allowance by $230 million following a $1 billion allowance reduction in loan-losses offset by actual impairments of $770 million. Stock is down following the release.

Remember when the hiring of former Wall Street insider and JP Morgan career man, Bill Daley, by the Obama administration as its latest Chief of Staff was big news last January? Well so much for that. The LA Times reports that the detente between Obama and Wall Street has reached new levels, with Daley's resignation expected to be announced at 3 pm by the president and is to be replaced by Citi's Jacob Lew, who in turn was the guy who oversaw the bank unit that "shorted the housing market." Well, at least Obama now knows to keep away from the JPM crew, whose Jamie Dimon is not all that happy with the president, if he wishes to avoid looking like not only the Wall Street's patsy, but also the guy who fails at sloppy seconds.

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

Update: JPMORGAN SAYS IT DOESN'T HAVE MF GLOBAL MISSING MONEY.  Ok, now we need to check with JT Marlin

Last week we heard of glitches which resulted in Germany finding $55.5 billion in missing "debt" and a €3.6 billion error in Irish debt. It was only a matter of time before MF Global also uncovered a "glitch"

• MF ACCOUNT WITH $658.8M IN CLIENT FUNDS SAID TO BE AT JPMORGAN
• MF GLOBAL'S MISSING CLIENT FUNDS SAID TO BE LOCATED AT JPMORGAN

Ignore the fact that MF admitted it had commingled and abused client funds. After all, the big boys take care of their own. And what is $660 million to JPM? Here's what - less than the taxpayer money profit the bank makes on one POMO.

One of the key catalysts (aside from the retarded rumor that JPM would buy Bank of America) that prevented BAC's stock from dropping to a 5 handle yesterday, was JPM's credit upgrade of Bank of America (report here). Sure enough, the reacharound from BAC is as usual missing, with the response from the bank's banking analyst Guy Moszkowski, being to... downgrade JPM. And he did not stop there: he also cut, GS, MS, and C: in other words the entire TBTF brigade. Someone should probably explain to Guy that any sell off in BAC's peers will be doubly acute in the stock of BAC itself, which has now become the whipping boy for the shorts, and the proxy of all that is wrong in the US and European banking system. Then again, with the palpable sheer panic in the corridors of 1 Bryant Park, we doubt anyone at that bank has any idea what they are doing at all.

(But yes, @Nouriel, we need central banks, and moral hazard and FRB did not exist before 1913...Q.E.D., right?)

There may have been those who thought that our focused mockery of Moody's head something Mark Zandi went a little too far last summer when he and other prominent Princeton proctovoodoologist Alan Blinder praised Tim Geithner's abysmal "recovery" in a desperate attempt to get an administrative job away from their respective sinking ships. Well now he have pure comedy genius to add to allegations of incompetent buffoonery. On Friday, Zandi told Yahoo's Daily Ticker that of all proposed replacements to Tim Geithner (a list which he somehow was not part of despite years of sycophantry) JPMorgan head, currently embroiled in billion dollars worth of mortgage fraud litigation, would make a "Fabulous" Treasury Secretary. That's right: the head of the bank that effectively shares its balance sheet with the Fed courtesy of being the primary shadow banking system gatekeeper as one of two tri-party repo clearers, and whose relentless printing of new bonds would necessitate round after round of QE, would make a "fabulous" treasury secretary... While we are at it, why not just get Bernie Madoff, who continues to be in jail for doing what the global financial system does each and every day, furloughed and have him run the US Treasury every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on alternative weeks when the bimonthly refunding occurs. After all who better to lead the US Treasury than him?

Reports Bloomberg: "JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said some municipalities will need to renegotiate their debt and that hundreds of them may “not make it.” “I wouldn’t panic about what I’m about to say,” he said today at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event in Washington. “You’re going to see some municipalities not make it. I don’t think it’s going to shatter America, I just think it’s a part of the credit cycle." Precisely: and it is precisely the part that JP Morgan comes in and offers sale leaseback offers to said munis, and other ingenious financial solutions that see munis selling their assets to the bank which after the Fed, has the biggest balance sheet, and can thus offer to engage in some even more creative asset-liability mismatch. Also explains why unlike Meredith, Jamie will not only not be asked to come in and testify to congress over his abrasive observations of an insolvent American reality, but will be lauded as a hero as he will provide funding to buy insolvent municipalities a year or two of time, which upon expiration will see Jamie end up with even more assets formerly belong to taxpayers, but by then everyone in the current District of Corruption cadre will be long gone with their part of the spoils. And so the "credit cycle" turns.

"The world has paid with tens of millions of unemployed, who
were in no way to blame and who paid for everything. It caused a lot of anger. Too much is too much. The world was stupefied to see one of five biggest U.S. banks collapse like a house of cards. We saw that for the last 10 years, major institutions in which we thought we could trust had done things which had nothing to do with simple common sense. That's what happened... There is an ocean between flexibility and the scandal we saw.  So if people present me as obsessed with regulation,
it's because there is a need for regulation. I don't contest the principle of securitisation, but when
one offshore country guaranteed 700 times its GDP, are we in the
market economy or in a madhouse? Bonuses don't bother me, provided there are also ...
draw-downs when there are losses. When things don't work, you
can never find anyone responsible. Those who got bumper bonuses
for seven years should have made losses in 2008 when things
collapsed." - Nicolas Sarkozy

Want to front-run the Fed? If you're Jamie Dimon, there's no need to parse FOMC statements or obscure speeches by Fed governors. No need to analyze hundreds of Treasury securities. Even hiring expert networks staffed with ex-Fed officials is unnecessary. No, if you're Jamie Dimon, you go straight to the top and break bread with William Dudley, ex-Goldmanite president of the NY Fed.

Some accounting voodoo to start off the day. In a nutshell - the bank which missed total revenue expectations of $24.28 billion by almost half a billion at $23.824 (which you may find unadjusted on one place somewhere in the attached presentation but most likely not), and which is entering Q4 with the foreclosure fraud crisis chip on its shoulder, and halted mortgages, somehow is lowering its net charge-off provisions estimate by over a billion. Which is why, hey presto, earnings of $1.01 "beat" expectations of $0.88, and the robotic headline scanners go nuts over the stock. More importantly, in discussing fraudclosure, JPM admits that by the time there is a foreclosure sale, borrowers are on average 14 months delinquent. In other words, all those who end up being "thrown out" on the street, live mortgage-free for over a year! And one wonders where all the excess marginal money to buy worthless trinkets comes from...

Something is rotten in the state of Rochdale. One of the most bullish banking analysts ever, Dick Bove, just crucified not only JP Morgan's earnings report, but also said Jamie Dimon "missed it completely on housing", and lastly, has turned extremely bearish on the overall economy, saying there is a 40-60% chance for a double dip, which at last check is probably more bearish than David Rosenberg. Bove throws up all over JPM "good" results, stating it is all a function of loan loss reductions, which the bank is in no way entitled to take at this point, when there is so much negative macro data piling up. As NPLs are likely to continue deteriorating in the future, should the economy weaken further, JPM would have to not only replenish existing accounting gimmicks such as boosting Net Income via balance sheet trickery, but to put even more cash to preserve a viable capitalization ratio. As Bove is the quintessential contrarian indicator, we are preparing for a month long sabbatical to a Buddhist monastery in Tibet to thoroughly reevaluate our perspectives on the universe.

TheStreet.com has dug up a very interesting email that shows what goes behind closed doors when the heads of two of the largest US and Spanish banks get together and talk. Not all of it appears to be legal – there may be collusion and an agreement not to compete for acquisitions.

Jamie Dimon, chairman, president and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, has been reelected a Class A director and Jeffrey B. Kindler, chairman and chief executive officer of Pfizer, has been reelected a Class B director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Dimon has been serving as a Class A director since January 2007 and Mr. Kindler has been serving as a Class B director since October 2009. Mr. Dimon and Mr. Kindler will be serving new three-year terms ending December 2012.