摩根大通20亿交易巨亏只是一个开始

    其次，戴蒙面临的损失远不止这一项交易。大约5年前，戴蒙设立了这个首席投资办公室，利用富余现金进行更激进的投资。直到最近，这种做法一直都很奏效。摩根大通首席投资办公室每年贡献约5亿美元利润。今年，该部门原本准备为摩根大通贡献8亿美元利润。虽然戴蒙还没有说明是否会关闭这个部门，但很可能的是他至少会压缩其规模。投资者也会提出这种要求。这个过去一直不怎么受关注的部门将成为每个季度的提问焦点，直到该部门显著缩减、甚至完全消失。总之没人再敢放心大胆地忽略它了。

    而且，这可能还不是摩根大通要缩减的唯一业务。迄今为止，让摩根大通跻身华尔街上最冒险、盈利能力最强银行之列的就是该行的衍生品交易业务，规模远超全球任何其他银行。摩根大通持有的衍生品合约名义价值达到惊人的1.6万亿美元还多，足以将该行资本金全部抹去近10次。当然，摩根大通表示，其衍生品交易没有看起来的那么大规模或那么大风险。该行称，考虑到对冲和担保因素，实际风险敞口仅为660亿美元。但我们刚刚已经见识了摩根大通的对冲交易到底有多么出色。

    最后，除了摩根大通在金融危机中的损失小于竞争对手外，戴蒙能问鼎“华尔街之王”的一个原因是即便是在信贷紧缩政策实施之后，他仍能带领摩根大通取得较高的业绩。摩根大通的净资产回报率（一项关键的财务衡量指标）比其他任何银行都高。去年，该行的净资产回报率为16%，而高盛仅为9%。但摩根大通能取得如此高回报率的原因之一是该行的资本金水平相对较低。

    如果投资者要求摩根大通将资本金提高到高盛的水平，其净资产回报率将降至约10%。突然之间，戴蒙就不再那么卓尔不群了。他的表现也就马马虎虎。这一点可能对摩根大通构成最沉重的打击。过去几年，投资者投资这家公司的部分原因是：投资摩根大通就意味着可以得到戴蒙和他管理风险的能力。我们看来都过于相信“某一个人就能保护一家拥有2万亿资产的银行免遭失败”。

    “银行一直都是个黑匣子，”近期新书《逃亡华尔街》（Exile on Wall Street）的作者、法国农业信贷（Credit Agricole）的分析师迈克尔•梅奥说。“人们不得不依赖高管和体系来管理风险。”押注戴蒙和摩根大通的可靠性已经大不如前。

    译者：早稻米

    Second, Dimon is facing much bigger losses than this one trade. Dimon set up the chief investment office about five years ago to invest the bank's excess cash more aggressively. Up until recently, it has worked. JPMorgan's CIO office has turned in about $500 million in profit a year. This year it was on track to add $800 million to the firm's bottom line. While Dimon has yet to say whether he is shutting down the division, it's likely he will at the least have to scale it back. Investors will demand it. Expect the division, which used to go mostly unnoticed, to be the focus of a barrage of questions each quarter until it is shrunk dramatically or goes away. No one will ever trust to ignore it again.

    And that might not be the only business that JPMorgan has to retreat from. By far what makes JPMorgan the riskiest bank on Wall Street, and one of the most profitable, is the bank's derivative trading book, which is far larger than any other bank in the world. JPMorgan holds derivatives contracts with a notional value of just over $1.6 trillion. That's enough to wipe out the bank's capital nearly 10 times over. Of course, JPMorgan says its derivative bets aren't nearly that big or as risky as they appear. Factor in hedges and collateral, and the bank says its actual exposure is just $66 billion. But we have just seen how well JPMorgan's hedges can work.

    Lastly, one of the reasons that Dimon has been able to claim the crown of King of the Street, besides the fact that his bank had smaller losses in the financial crisis than rivals, is that, even after the credit crunch, he has continued to show better results. JPMorgan's return on equity, a key measure in finance, is higher than any other bank. Last year, the bank's ROE clocked in at 16%, compared to 9% for Goldman Sachs. But one of the reasons that JPMorgan has been able to turn in such high numbers is because the bank has had relatively low levels of capital.

    If investors demand JPMorgan raise its capital level to what Goldman has, the company's ROE would drop to around 10%. All of a sudden, Dimon is no longer leading the pack. He's just average. And that might be the biggest blow to JPMorgan. Part of the reason for investing in the company in the past few years is that Dimon, and his ability to manage risk, comes along with the package. We all seemed to have placed way too much faith in the idea that one individual could protect a bank with $2 trillion in assets from blow-ups.

    "Banks are always black boxes," says Michael Mayo, an analyst at Credit Agricole and author of the recent book Exile on Wall Street. "You have to rely on the executives and the systems in place to manage that risk." Betting on Dimon, and JPMorgan, just became a lot less reliable than it used to be.