In a world of constant over reactions Fortune contributor Sheila Bair takes the cake in her assessment of JP Morgan. Because of their $2 billion and counting trading loss she believes the bank would be better off broken up. Keep in mind that no bank in the United States, and few in the world has been more profitable than JP Morgan through the most vicious financial crisis since the Great Depression. When you make money through trading you are also taking the risk of losing money through trading and to extrapolate one quarter’s loss to such a degree is absurd. Her contention that if the company was broken up the shareholders would be better off seems unlikely and short sighted. The key to long term banking profits are a low cost and sustainable deposit base. JP Morgan will still be very profitable this quarter and while I don’t agree with JP Morgan being so large in the credit default swap business, the thesis of the following article makes no sense to me.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/25/jp-morgan-chase-breakup/?iid=SF_F_LN