JPMorgan Chase announces $2 billion trading loss

Washington, May 11 (ANI): JPMorgan Chase and Co., a leading global financial services firm, has admitted that it lost two billion dollars from a trading portfolio barely four years after Wall Street's wrong-way bets sank the world into a financial crisis.

The trading portfolio was supposed to have helped the bank manage credit risk, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The announcement has stunned the financial industry because it came from a highly regarded bank.

Chief Executive Jamie Dimon told analysts that the bank racked up 2 billion dollars in trading losses during the last six weeks, and that could "easily get worse." He added that JPMorgan could suffer an additional 1 billion dollars loss from the portfolio during the second quarter.

"These were egregious mistakes," Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said, who is considered one of the world's savviest bankers. "We have egg on our face, and we deserve any criticism we get," Dimon added.

The blowup at the nation's largest bank came amid a heated debate in Congress over how much regulation is needed to rein in the risk-taking that caused the near-meltdown of the financial system in 2008.

Indeed, Dimon acknowledged that the trading losses will lead to the need of stronger banking regulations.

Critics of Wall Street immediately called for regulators to proceed with cracking down on big banks such as JPMorgan, which began the year with 863 billion dollars in federally insured domestic deposits.

Bank lobbyists have argued that the biggest U.S. banks required more flexibility if they had to compete against global financial giants. (ANI)