Stockholder's Equity at JP Morgan Chase (JPM) amounted to almost $184 billion at the end of last year, so when the CEO seemed to announce that a proprietary trading desk there dropped $2 billion over the last six weeks on something or another somewhere on the planet, with the possibility that open position(s) in whatever he was talking about could extend the loss by another $1 billion, the debacle he was either inadequately disclosing, or merely alluding to, didn't seem to threaten the colossus' existence all that much, if at all, and the CEO rushed to add that trading profits of $4 billion estimated for the current quarter will comfortably absorb that which just happened, whatever it was. One got the impression from reported rumors elsewhere in the press that derivatives were involved, and maybe the London office.
JPM is too big to talk straight, so we're awaiting further non-disclosures and double-talk before commenting on what appears to be a situation here, or not.
