J P Morgan pays $100M, admits fault in London trades

Source: NBC News

J P Morgan Chase has agreed to pay $100 million and admit its traders engaged in reckless behavior to settle charges that it manipulated markets as part of its so-called London Whale trades on a specific day last year.

The fine and admission of questionable conduct are milestones for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which used new authorities granted under the Dodd-Frank Act to curb manipulative conduct. Among other things, the law allows the commission to crack down on those who "intentionally or recklessly" use "any manipulative device" or scheme to defraud other investers

The CFTC said that JPMorgan traders in London sold off $7 billion in derivatives tied to a price index of corporate bonds on Feb. 29, 2012 — including $4.6 billion worth in a three-hour span. Derivatives are investments whose value is based on some other investment, such as oil and currencies. JPMorgan was betting that the price of the index would drop. When the traders sold their derivatives, the price of the index plunged.

That was a "staggering volume" and the most ever traded by the bank in one day, according to the CFTC. The traders realized that the huge volume of the derivatives they had amassed could affect the market, and they decided to do so, the agency said.



Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/jpmorgan-pays-100m-admits-fault-london-trades-8C11401097

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Well what do you know.....they are crooks...they admit they are crooks.............and this quote from another part of the story, says that it is not the first time that they have admitted that they are crooks.....

"Wednesday's settlement comes less than a month after JPMorgan agreed to pay $920 million and admit fault in a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other U.S. and British regulators. "