多年以来，摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）这家世界上最冒险的银行每每总能涉险过关。当然，一路上小麻烦不断。但基本上，投资者对于这家由杰米•戴蒙领导的银行总是能放手不管。次贷问题：过去你们已经证明，你们能应付。止赎问题：我们坚信你们已安排了最好的人手。相当于印度GDP的衍生品投资组合：我们相信你们掌握着足够的资金。

    事实上，尽管摩根大通拥有如此庞大的规模、复杂性和风险，但投资者们允许戴蒙和摩根大通以华尔街最低的资本缓冲（即可抵御损失的权益资本）一路“前行”。如果对摩根大通的贷款和投资按风险进行分类（这种分类虽不可靠但仍被华尔街采用），该行的资本充足率仅为10%。而花旗（Citigroup）、高盛（Goldman Sachs）分别为13%和15%。

    不过，这样的差距似乎并没有让投资者感到不安。摩根大通的股票估值一度居华尔街前列。直到最近，它还是少数几家市净率高于1的大银行之一。这意味着华尔街认为，该公司实际价值超出其账面价值。花旗目前的市净率仅为0.5倍。

    然而，上周，这一切全都变了。上周四下午，戴蒙通过一个紧急电话会议告诉分析师们，过去40天摩根大通首席投资办公室在一场交易中损失了20亿美元；该部门原本应通过投资，降低该行风险，而不是加剧风险。上周五，摩根大通股价狂跌近10%，收盘价不到37美元。

    有些人只看这20亿美元损失，认为对于通常每季盈利50亿美元并拥有550亿美元现金的一家银行来说，算不了什么。毫无疑问，摩根大通能处理好这事。事实上，考虑到该部门所从事的所有其他交易，该部门合计损失降至8亿美元。整体而言，该行这个季度看起来仍然有望获得高额利润。

    但实际损失将远远超出这些。首先，摩根大通在这场交易中的最终损失可能超出已经披露的金额。有报道称，这项让摩根大通陷入麻烦的交易规模可能高达1,000亿美元，主要由英国一名外号“伦敦鲸”的交易员操盘。摩根大通绝不会损失1,000亿美元那么多。但像摩根大通这样对某一指数进行多倍押注的交易可能需要付出昂贵的代价才能解除，必须与信用度高的大公司进行交易。戴蒙在分析师电话会议上表示，该行在这项交易上的损失可能会进一步扩大，但他没有透露具体数字。

    For years, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), perhaps the riskiest bank in the world, got a pass. Sure there were minor hiccups along the way. But basically investors had the attitude with the bank run by Jamie Dimon that they were going to be hands off. Sub-prime mortgage loans: You've proved you can handle them. Foreclosure problems: We're sure you've got your best people on it. A derivative portfolio roughly the size of the GDP of India: We trust that you have covered your bets.

    In fact, despite its huge size and complexity and risk, investors have allowed Dimon and JPMorgan to skate by on one of the smallest capital cushions, which is how much equity you have to protect against losses, on Wall Street. When you sort JPMorgan's loans and investments by riskiness, a dubious calculation, but used by Wall Street nonetheless, the bank holds an equivalent of just 10% of that as capital. That compares to 13% at Citigroup (C) and 15% at Goldman Sachs (GS).

    That shortfall, though, didn't seem to bother investors. JPMorgan's shares were rewarded with one of the richest valuations on Wall Street. Until recently, it was one of the few big banks to trade above book value, meaning Wall Street believed it was worth what it said. Citigroup's shares trade at a price-to-book of 0.5.

    This week, all that changed. On Thursday afternoon, Dimon told analysts in an emergency conference call that JPMorgan's chief investment office, a division that is supposed to place investments that lower the risk of the bank, not increase it, had lost $2 billion on a trading strategy in the past 40 days. JPMorgan's shares fell nearly 10% on Friday and closed at just under $37.

    Some have focused just on the $2 billion loss, commenting that it's not that big a deal for a bank that has typically been earning $5 billion every three months and has $55 billion in cash. There's no question JPMorgan can handle it. In fact, factor in all of the division's other trades, and the bank's loss from the division shrinks to $800 million. Overall, the bank will still likely show a hefty profit this quarter.

    But the actual cost of the loss will be much bigger than that. First of all, JPMorgan could end up losing more on the bet than it has already disclosed. Others have reported that the trade that got JPMorgan into trouble, which is mostly attributed to a single trader who is based in the UK and has come to be known as the London Whale, could be as large as $100 billion. The bank won't lose anywhere close to that. But transactions like the one JPMorgan appears to have, where it makes multiple bets involving a particular index, in this case one that has to do with large, credit-worthy companies, can be very costly to unwind. Dimon on the conference call with analysts said the bank's losses on the trade are likely to increase but he didn't say how much.

    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.