Nassim Taleb always has some interesting opinions and his thoughts on the JP Morgan trading losses seem to indicate that he doesn’t believe banks should be trading derivatives. This is an odd sentiment due to his background as a derivatives trader. I think that this situation has been blown up to epic proportions and is truly ridiculous. Trading is called trading and not making money, because some trades lose money. JP Morgan is a huge institution and $2 billion is a manageable figure for them. I would like to see more transparency just like Taleb wants. I feel that the fact that the banks are trading at such huge discounts to tangible book value is reflective of the lack of confidence that the market has in fully understanding their operations. To use a trading loss as a reason to write off a whole sector or to imply that things are simply out of control throughout all of the large banks is way off the mark.
http://www.gurufocus.com/news/177597/nassim-taleb-on-jp-morgans-london-whale