Dimon: I don't know if everyone was as stupid as we were

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- JPMorgan Chase, in a surprise announcement, said Thursday that it has suffered trading losses of $2 billion since the start of April.

Dimon was extremely agitated on the call Thursday with analysts. In response to repeated questioning, he said: "I don't know how many times I can say this."

Mayo pushed on whether market conditions were to blame, asking Dimon whether he thought other banks could be in the same situation.

"I don't know," Dimon replied, sighing audibly. "Just because we're stupid doesn't mean everyone else was."

Finally, Mayo asked Dimon what he should have paid more attention to in hindsight.

"Trading losses," Dimon said simply. "Newspapers."
Another analyst asked about the "terrible" timing of the loss, given the debate over the Volcker Rule.

That rule, a part of the Wall Street reform law passed in response to the financial crisis, aims to ban risky trading by banks for their own profit, a strategy sometimes referred to as proprietary trading.

"It's very unfortunate ... it plays right into the hands of pundits out there, but that's life," Dimon said. Earlier in the call, he said: "It didn't violate the Volcker rule; it violated the Dimon principle."

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/companies/jp-morgan-losses/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=hp_t3

 

Interesting to note that just a month ago:

"Dimon had defended the unit as a “sophisticated” guardian of the bank’s funds on an April 13 conference call, calling news coverage “a complete tempest in a teapot.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/jpmorgan-loses-2-billion-as-mistakes-trounce-hedges.html

Now suddenly, it violates "the Dimon Principle"?? Poor Mr. Dimon will probably only walk away with an eight-figure income this year as a result, while many others will lose their jobs for trying to meet the CEO's expectations of profitability.

 

It would be refreshing if, when they bring up the Volcker rule, instead of bemoaning this as "bad timing" or saying it "plays into the hands of the pundits" he said:

"Maybe they're right. That would be a good rule."

 

90% of big traders just lose? They just lose?

Nobody wins in this world, except emg.