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Cramer on BloggingStocks: JP Morgan made a huge mistake

 Jun 20, 2008 08:57 AM UTC
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WM Negative 06/20/08 +10.56% 07/03/08

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Filed under: Industry, Market matters, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Merrill Lynch (MER), Countrywide Financial (CFC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Wachovia Corp (WB), Washington Mutual (WM), Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Stocks to Sell, Cramer on BloggingStocks

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the acquired Bear Stearns portfolio is worth even less than he thought.

How bad was that Bear Stearns portfolio? I am beginning to believe that JPMorgan's (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) buy of Bear is looking like a big mistake. It can only be justified by what might have been an even bigger problem for JPM -- the collapse of the trades that Bear made, which were being processed by JPM's clearing.

We are now beginning to get a real sense of the worthlessness of the mortgage portfolios. Not that we got any help from the SEC, which has taken a "we don't care what's in the mortgages as long as you tell us you have mortgages" attitude. That's been worthless for investors, and maybe even for JPMorgan.

The losses now exceed $400 billion, according to my modeling (if you simply assumed that 50% of the exotic mortgages that were issued from 2005 to 2007 eventually went into default). That's amazing, but it looks like I dramatically underestimated the losses. UNDERESTIMATED!

The most egregious issuers of these exotic mortgages were Bear, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) (Cramer's Take) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) (Cramer's Take). I believe that JPM has taken in a huge number of uninsurable, non-hedgeable mortgage instruments that are a pure write-off. And that means they are probably underwater on everything they took in.

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guliamo   47%     1 point   commented 480 days ago reply

Cramer is very wrong. JPM got 20 billion in government guarantees for the deal and a few extra buildings in down town Manhattan to boot. The deal is sweet!
http://www.marketguru.com/guliamo


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