On Tuesday, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced it has been chosen to serve as custodian for the Federal Reserve program to purchase mortgage-backed securities. The program, which began on Jan. 5, 2009, will purchase up to $500 billion in MBSs that are backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae.
The Fed also selected four investment managers -- BlackRock Financial Management Inc., Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP, Pacific Investment Management Co. LLC, known as Pimco, and Wellington Management Co. LLP -- to implement the program.
Last week, J.P. Morgan recorded a 2008 fourth-quarter profit of $702 million, from $17.2 billion in revenues. Included in the losses were pretax write-downs of $2.9 billion for loans funding
leveraged buyouts and mortgage-related positions at the investment bank.
Jamie Dimon did not contain his contempt for the investment decisions of his colleagues at other banks when speaking last week at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "God knows, some really stupid things were done by American banks and by American investment banks," he told a panel.
Now Dimon gets the opportunity to display his bank's smarts.
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Is anybody proofing the stuff that is written here? There are various fundamental typos that make this important story illegible and unreliable. Get your act together.