NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon owned up to stock analysts and went on television to accept blame for a $2 billion trading mistake. Next, he faces shareholders, who are considerably less wealthy since the blunder was disclosed.
While Dimon may be greeted by some colorful protesters when he arrives today for the JPMorgan annual meeting in Tampa, Fla., the shareholders themselves are unlikely to call for his head.
For them, facing the crisis without Dimon might be a bigger nightmare than the trading loss itself.
“When a bank is dealing with this sort of a challenge, you want someone of his caliber to shepherd it through,” said longtime JPMorgan shareholder Michael Holland, chairman and founder of money manager Holland & Co.
That has not been a universal opinion since Thursday, when Dimon disclosed to analysts that the bank had lost $2 billion by making a bad bet with so-called credit derivatives.
Investors lopped almost 10 percent off JPMorgan’s stock price the next day, and 3 percent more Monday. Since Dimon made the announcement, almost $20 billion in market value has evaporated.
Elizabeth Warren, architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a Senate candidate from Massachusetts, called for Dimon to give up his board seat at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
And Monday, President Barack Obama said on
ABC’s “The View” talk show that the loss demonstrates the need for the Wall Street rules that Congress passed two years ago. Many of the rules are still being written and have not taken effect.
White House press secretary Jay Carney, without singling out Dimon, said Washington can’t prevent “bad decisions being made on Wall Street.” He pointed out that it was the bank and its shareholders, not bailout-weary taxpayers, who were suffering this time.
Dimon will be talking to shareholders from a position of weakness. He has built a reputation as a cost-cutting zealot and an expert at keeping risk under control.
