Investment Houses Ditch Wall Street. FAQ: What happened at JP Morgan? And should you care? What was the trade?
As Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times writes, we don’t need to get too technical here. “Leaving aside the sophistication of the transactions themselves, JPMorgan’s trader, a London-based derivatives expert whose portfolio was so outsized he became known in the markets as the London Whale, essentially bet that corporate debt was becoming less risky as corporations were getting stronger -- in trading parlance, he was long corporate debt. But he did so in a way that even a tiny hiccup in the index he was trading could be exploited by rival traders. Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. Is This the End of Wall Street As They Knew It? On Wall Street, bonus season is a sacred ritual.
It is the annual rite where net worth and self-worth get elegantly reduced to a single number. During the 25-year boom that abruptly ended in 2008, the only principle that really mattered come bonus time was how you ranked against the guys to your right and left. The system was governed by a kind of atavistic justice: You eat what you kill.
Wall Streeters Juicing To Load Up On Risk.