A JPMorgan office building is shown, Monday, May 14, 2012, in New York. JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, said Thursday that it lost $2 billion in the past six weeks in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)DANIEL WAGNER
WASHINGTON (AP) – The $2 billion trading loss at JPMorgan Chase has renewed calls for stricter oversight of Wall Street banks. Two years after Congress passed an overhaul of financial rules, many of those changes have yet to be finalized.
JPMorgan’s misstep gives advocates of stronger regulation an opening to argue that regulators should toughen their approach.
The Obama administration has argued that it went as hard on banks as possible without further upsetting global finance. Now Democratic lawmakers and administration officials say JPMorgan case proves that more change is needed.
Still, many in the industry warn against reading too much into one trading loss. They say losing money is an inevitable part of taking risk, as banks must.