Jamie Dimon, the Chief Executive for JPMorgan Chase, made an appearance in front of lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He said that the bank was straightforward with its investors regarding the multibillion-dollar trading loss it suffered.
“We disclosed what we knew when we knew it,” Dimon said in front of the House Financial Services Committee during his second appearance in just one week. Dimon did say that the bank changed a ‘value-at-risk’ model for the portfolio that lost the money back in January. The value-at-risk helps measure the expected losses for a portfolio over a period of time. The change was not disclosed until May 10, which is when Dimon said that the company lost $2 billion. Dimon also told lawmakers that be thought risk controls ‘were properly being done.’
Dimon responded with the following after he was asked by a lawmaker what he thought when he learned of the massive losses:
“When we fully realized it, I told my people everything’s going to happen, including coming down here to Washington,” he said. “I said let’s put our jerseys on and fix this. I don’t want this to detract from all that our 260,000 people do every day.”
The multibillion-dollar loss is being investigated by the FBI, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. When the bank reports its earnings for the second quarter on July 13, it is expected that it will issue a full update regarding the losses.
Dimon was asked to defend JPMorgan’s size, as it is the largest bank in the United States in terms of assets. Dimon said that the bank is ‘not too big to fail.’ He also said that he does not think there is ‘any chance we’re going to fail.’ JPMorgan is being investigated by the SEC in order to find out if the bank misled its investors by not disclosing the change to the value-at-risk until late in the year.
