Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Bank lobbyist uses JP Morgan to make case for ultra transparency

As reported by the Wall Street Journal in an article discussing the impact of JP Morgan's trading loss on the on-going writing of banking regulation (like the Volcker Rule, swap rules, and TBTF living wills).
"Everybody needs to take a breath. Very few people have the facts. We don't have them, and the regulators don't have them," said Tim Ryan, chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
Please re-read the highlight text as the head of Wall Street's lobbying firm has just made the case for THE regulation that should emerge as a result of JP Morgan's trading loss:  the requirement that banks provide ultra transparency.

If JP Morgan was required to disclose on an on-going basis its current asset, liability and off-balance sheet exposure details, then everyone would have the facts.

This would be a vast improvement over the current blindly guessing (the range of guesses currently being the Independent indicates that traders believe JP Morgan's losses are now approaching $7 billion while ZeroHedge indicates we might be talking about the potential for losses approaching $30 billion; update:  ZeroHedge is now estimating that the maximum loss was $8 billion).

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