Diageo (LON:DGE – Get Free Report) had its price objective lowered by research analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from GBX 3,500 ($44.50) to GBX 3,200 ($40.68) in a report issued on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has a “neutral” rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s target price would suggest a potential upside of 10.15% from the stock’s previous close.
A number of other analysts have also weighed in on DGE. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on shares of Diageo from GBX 2,700 ($34.32) to GBX 2,500 ($31.78) and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 4th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Diageo from GBX 3,600 ($45.77) to GBX 3,050 ($38.77) and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, November 13th. Finally, Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Diageo from GBX 3,730 ($47.42) to GBX 3,550 ($45.13) and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of GBX 3,435.71 ($43.68).
LON DGE opened at GBX 2,905 ($36.93) on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of £64.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 1,760.61, a PEG ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 0.33. The company has a 50 day moving average of GBX 2,804.17 and a 200-day moving average of GBX 3,043.93. The company has a current ratio of 1.63, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 186.47. Diageo has a 1-year low of GBX 2,676 ($34.02) and a 1-year high of GBX 3,779.50 ($48.05).
Insider Buying and Selling at Diageo
In related news, insider Javier Ferrán bought 289 shares of Diageo stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 13th. The stock was acquired at an average price of GBX 2,860 ($36.36) per share, with a total value of £8,265.40 ($10,507.75). In the last three months, insiders have acquired 305 shares of company stock worth $872,152. Insiders own 0.16% of the company’s stock.
Diageo plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the production, marketing, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It offers scotch, gin, vodka, rum, raki, liqueur, wine, tequila, Chinese white spirits, cachaça, and brandy, as well as beer, including cider and flavoured malt beverages. The company also provides Canadian, Irish, American, and Indian-Made Foreign Liquor whiskies, as well as ready to drink and non-alcoholic products.
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WFA of San Diego LLC grew its position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) by 70.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,264 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 523 shares during the quarter. WFA of San Diego LLC’s holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. were worth $183,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of JPM. OFI Invest Asset Management grew its holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 5.8% during the third quarter. OFI Invest Asset Management now owns 449,527 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $61,573,000 after acquiring an additional 24,575 shares during the period. Diversified LLC raised its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 10.9% in the 3rd quarter. Diversified LLC now owns 8,345 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $1,210,000 after buying an additional 820 shares during the period. ML & R Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 13.9% during the 3rd quarter. ML & R Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,957 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $574,000 after purchasing an additional 482 shares in the last quarter. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors boosted its position in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 27.3% in the 3rd quarter. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors now owns 3,986 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $578,000 after purchasing an additional 855 shares during the period. Finally, Todd Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 25.6% in the 3rd quarter. Todd Asset Management LLC now owns 249,993 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $36,254,000 after purchasing an additional 50,884 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.94% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets
JPM has been the topic of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $187.00 to $191.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 16th. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $158.00 to $167.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $192.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price objective on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $176.00 to $169.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. Finally, Oppenheimer cut their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $234.00 to $232.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $177.21.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. stock traded down $0.66 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $172.28. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 7,442,955 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,066,694. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a 12-month low of $123.11 and a 12-month high of $176.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.30, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a current ratio of 0.91. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $164.53 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $153.77. The company has a market cap of $495.59 billion, a PE ratio of 10.62, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.13.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 12th. The financial services provider reported $3.04 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.73 by ($0.69). The firm had revenue of $38.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $39.73 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a return on equity of 17.80% and a net margin of 20.70%. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.57 earnings per share. Analysts expect that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will post 15.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dividend Announcement
The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 31st. Investors of record on Thursday, January 4th will be given a dividend of $1.05 per share. This represents a $4.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s dividend payout ratio is presently 25.89%.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other JPMorgan Chase & Co. news, insider Ashley Bacon sold 3,368 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.73, for a total value of $561,546.64. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 205,461 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,256,512.53. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, CEO Marianne Lake sold 32,243 shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.00, for a total value of $5,158,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 131,962 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,113,920. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Ashley Bacon sold 3,368 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.73, for a total value of $561,546.64. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 205,461 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,256,512.53. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 39,072 shares of company stock worth $6,297,103. Insiders own 0.79% of the company’s stock.
JPMorgan Chase & Co operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit, investment and lending products, cash management, and payments and services to consumers and small businesses; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit cards, auto loans, leases, and travel services.
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Oldfather Financial Services LLC reduced its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 5,812 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 210 shares during the period. Oldfather Financial Services LLC’s holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. were worth $843,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Atlas Private Wealth Management lifted its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 11.7% during the 2nd quarter. Atlas Private Wealth Management now owns 27,106 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $3,942,000 after acquiring an additional 2,834 shares during the period. Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Valicenti Advisory Services Inc. now owns 79,891 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $11,586,000 after acquiring an additional 2,220 shares during the period. Hilltop Holdings Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 4.4% during the 2nd quarter. Hilltop Holdings Inc. now owns 34,079 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $4,956,000 after acquiring an additional 1,439 shares during the period. Checchi Capital Advisers LLC increased its position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 4.4% during the 2nd quarter. Checchi Capital Advisers LLC now owns 39,447 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $5,737,000 after purchasing an additional 1,652 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 14.0% during the 2nd quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 50,991 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $7,416,000 after purchasing an additional 6,264 shares in the last quarter. 68.94% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $140.00 to $190.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $186.00 to $212.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 2nd. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $167.00 to $171.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 16th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $177.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a “hold” rating for the company. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.00.
In related news, CEO Marianne Lake sold 32,243 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.00, for a total value of $5,158,880.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 131,962 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,113,920. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.79% of the company’s stock.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Stock Performance
Shares of JPM opened at $169.05 on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a 1 year low of $123.11 and a 1 year high of $176.31. The company has a market cap of $488.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a current ratio of 0.90. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $160.03 and a 200-day moving average of $152.05.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The financial services provider reported $3.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.73 by ($0.69). JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a net margin of 22.79% and a return on equity of 17.97%. The firm had revenue of $38.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $39.73 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.57 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will post 16.61 earnings per share for the current year.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Announces Dividend
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 31st. Investors of record on Thursday, January 4th will be issued a $1.05 dividend. This represents a $4.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s payout ratio is currently 25.07%.
JPMorgan Chase & Co operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit, investment and lending products, cash management, and payments and services to consumers and small businesses; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit cards, auto loans, leases, and travel services.
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Asbury Automotive Group (NYSE:ABG – Get Free Report) was upgraded by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has a $245.00 target price on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s target price indicates a potential upside of 24.77% from the stock’s current price.
Several other analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Stephens lifted their price target on shares of Asbury Automotive Group from $275.00 to $300.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Asbury Automotive Group in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a “hold” rating for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Asbury Automotive Group from $128.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th.
ABG stock opened at $196.36 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $216.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $218.44. The company has a market cap of $4.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.69 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a current ratio of 2.07. Asbury Automotive Group has a fifty-two week low of $150.73 and a fifty-two week high of $256.39.
Hedge Funds Weigh In On Asbury Automotive Group
Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. HighTower Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Asbury Automotive Group by 47.5% in the first quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 3,671 shares of the company’s stock worth $593,000 after buying an additional 1,182 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its holdings in Asbury Automotive Group by 8.9% during the 1st quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 1,459 shares of the company’s stock worth $233,000 after acquiring an additional 119 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can lifted its stake in Asbury Automotive Group by 1.2% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 6,583 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,099,000 after purchasing an additional 76 shares in the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Asbury Automotive Group by 56.3% in the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 12,440 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,993,000 after purchasing an additional 4,480 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rhumbline Advisers boosted its holdings in Asbury Automotive Group by 7.3% in the 1st quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 63,891 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,235,000 after purchasing an additional 4,367 shares during the period.
Asbury Automotive Group, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an automotive retailer in the United States. It offers a range of automotive products and services, including new and used vehicles; and vehicle repair and maintenance services, replacement parts, and collision repair services.
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Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT – Get Free Report) had its target price raised by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $190.00 to $205.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an “overweight” rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 29.43% from the stock’s current price.
SPOT has been the topic of a number of other reports. Barclays boosted their target price on Spotify Technology from $182.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Pivotal Research cut their target price on Spotify Technology from $145.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Spotify Technology from $180.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, July 14th. Monness Crespi & Hardt downgraded Spotify Technology from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 28th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Spotify Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $180.00 target price on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $168.32.
Shares of NYSE SPOT opened at $158.39 on Wednesday. Spotify Technology has a fifty-two week low of $69.29 and a fifty-two week high of $182.00. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $153.51 and its 200 day simple moving average is $150.39. The stock has a market cap of $30.84 billion, a P/E ratio of -39.60 and a beta of 1.70.
Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The company reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.20) by $0.56. Spotify Technology had a negative return on equity of 31.93% and a negative net margin of 5.70%. The business had revenue of $3.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.62 billion. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Spotify Technology will post -3.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Hedge Funds Weigh In On Spotify Technology
A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SPOT. SRS Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Spotify Technology in the 1st quarter valued at $294,683,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Spotify Technology by 55,455.8% in the 2nd quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 1,719,453 shares of the company’s stock valued at $276,015,000 after buying an additional 1,716,358 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Spotify Technology in the 4th quarter valued at $123,027,000. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Spotify Technology by 140.8% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,694,044 shares of the company’s stock valued at $226,358,000 after buying an additional 990,485 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Technology Crossover Management XI Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Spotify Technology in the 1st quarter valued at $127,271,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 56.89% of the company’s stock.
Spotify Technology SA, together with its subsidiaries, provides audio streaming services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Premium and Ad-Supported. The Premium segment offers unlimited online and offline streaming access to its catalog of music and podcasts without commercial breaks to its subscribers.
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Business leaders across the United States have expressed outrage and solidarity with Israel after the deadly surprise attack by Hamas.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Sunday the bank stands with Israel, instructing employees there to work remotely for the foreseeable future, a person familiar with the matter told CNN, as Dimon pledged support for the people of Israel.
“This past weekend’s attack on Israel and its people and the resulting war and bloodshed are a terrible tragedy,” Dimon told all employees on Sunday in a memo obtained by CNN. “We stand with our employees, their families and the people of Israel during this time of great suffering and loss,” Dimon said.
JPMorgan has about 230 to 240 employees in Israel and has asked staff there to work from home for the near future, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. News of JPMorgan’s plans were previously reported by Bloomberg News.
Dimon said all of JPMorgan’s employees and all of those traveling in the region have been confirmed safe as of Sunday.
“We pray for their safety and for their families and loved ones going forward,” Dimon said. “The human cost of wars and terrorism are enormous, with too many lives lost and changed forever. We join together in our hope to one day see the end of violence and for there to be peace throughout the Middle East.”
Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, told CNN in a statement on Monday: “New York City’s business community is reacting with the same grief and anger at these senseless acts of terrorism that we felt in response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. For New Yorkers, this is personal.”
The Partnership represents more than 300 of New York City’s business leaders and companies that employ more than 1 million New Yorkers.
“Nothing can justify the premeditated violence that took place in Israel this weekend,” Wylde said.
The Business Roundtable, a trade group representing leading US CEOs, said Monday in a statement to CNN: “We join the US government and global community in condemning the horrific attacks on Israel and stand in solidarity with the Israeli people.”
“We extend our heartfelt condolences to the people of Israel and stand in solidarity with them as they battle the scourge of terrorism,” the Chamber said.
The business group added that it’s in touch with partners from the Israeli government and the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce to explore ways to provide humanitarian assistance.
JPMorgan Chase notified the Treasury Department of more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Jeffrey Epstein dating back 16 years after the notorious sex predator killed himself in 2019, a lawyer for the U.S. Virgin Islands told a federal judge at a hearing Thursday, reports said.
“Epstein’s entire business with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire business with Epstein was human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, an attorney for the Virgin Islands told Judge Jed Rakoff in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, according to The Daily Beast.
Liu cited the bank’s notification to the Treasury Department as she argued that Rakoff should issue a summary judgment against JPMorgan, which is being sued by the Virgin Islands government for allegedly facilitating sex trafficking by Epstein of young women when he was a customer of the bank from 1998 through 2013.
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The attorney, referring to a $9 million block of transfers to women and suspicious withdrawals from Epstein’s accounts at JPMorgan, said it related to “facilitating” more than 20,000 sexual acts, the Daily Beast reported, given Epstein’s habit of paying several hundred dollars for each sexual encounter.
“JPMorgan was a full-service bank for Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking,” Liu said at the hearing, Bloomberg reported.
“The only reason that JPMorgan after 16 years reported the $1 billion in suspicious transactions was because he was arrested and then he was dead,” said Liu, according to Bloomberg.
She has accused the bank of continuing to do business with Epstein for years despite repeated red flags internally and his 2008 guilty plea to a Florida sex crime, the report said.
Epstein, 66, killed himself in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges. In addition to a residence in Manhattan, Epstein owned a private island in the Virgin Islands, where he was accused of sexually abusing women.
A lawyer for JPMorgan, which denies wrongdoing in the case, pushed back against the Virgin Islands claims that it should be found liable for abetting Epstein’s abuse of women.
The Virgin Islands is seeking at least $190 million in damages in the case, which will go to trial on Oct. 23 if Rakoff does not grant summary judgment to either side.
The bank’s lawyer, Felicia Ellsworth, told Rakoff that the Virgin Islands had presented “not a scintilla” of evidence that JPMorgan violated laws about sex trafficking, according to The Daily Beast.
Ellsworth also argued that the Virgin Islands lacked the legal standing to sue the bank. JPMorgan has said the American territory can only sue to vindicate the rights of residents, and that there is no proof that any of Epstein’s victims were residents of the Virgin Islands.
“There is hotly disputed testimony and evidence,” Ellsworth told Rakoff, according to Bloomberg.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment to CNBC about the Virgin Islands’ claims that the bank notified the Treasury Department of more than a $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein.
JPMorgan in July agreed to pay $290 million in a settlement with victims of Epstein to resolve a similar lawsuit filed by one of the accusers in Manhattan federal court.
In June, Deutsche Bank, which had taken Epstein on as a client after he was forced out by JPMorgan in 2013, agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a third suit in the same court.
Plancorp LLC trimmed its position in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) by 17.0% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,803 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after selling 1,398 shares during the quarter. Plancorp LLC’s holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. were worth $886,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in JPM. Adirondack Retirement Specialists Inc. grew its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 510.8% during the first quarter. Adirondack Retirement Specialists Inc. now owns 226 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Nordwand Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. during the first quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Boulder Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Sageworth Trust Co grew its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 266.7% during the first quarter. Sageworth Trust Co now owns 407 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Freedom Wealth Alliance LLC acquired a new position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $60,000. 70.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Stock Down 0.1 %
JPM opened at $147.19 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $149.60 and its 200 day simple moving average is $141.06. The stock has a market cap of $427.75 billion, a PE ratio of 9.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a current ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a 1-year low of $101.28 and a 1-year high of $159.38.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 14th. The financial services provider reported $4.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.62 by $0.75. The business had revenue of $42.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $38.66 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a net margin of 23.45% and a return on equity of 17.29%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 34.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.76 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will post 15.57 earnings per share for the current year.
Insider Buying and Selling
In other JPMorgan Chase & Co. news, Vice Chairman Peter Scher sold 2,482 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $141.39, for a total value of $350,929.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 41,333 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,844,072.87. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other JPMorgan Chase & Co. news, Vice Chairman Peter Scher sold 2,482 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $141.39, for a total value of $350,929.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 41,333 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,844,072.87. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Stacey Friedman sold 4,310 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $157.16, for a total transaction of $677,359.60. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 57,735 shares in the company, valued at $9,073,632.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 13,593 shares of company stock worth $1,992,388 in the last three months. 0.79% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
Analyst Ratings Changes
JPM has been the topic of several analyst reports. Citigroup lowered shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $160.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, July 12th. Barclays increased their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $179.00 to $182.00 in a report on Sunday, July 16th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a report on Thursday, August 17th. They issued a “hold” rating on the stock. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $170.00 target price on the stock in a report on Friday, July 7th. Finally, Societe Generale lowered shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, July 10th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $165.89.
JPMorgan Chase & Co is a financial holding company, which engages in providing financial and investment banking services. The firm offers a range of investment banking products and services in all capital markets, including advising on corporate strategy and structure, capital raising in equity and debt markets, risk management, market making in cash securities and derivative instruments, and brokerage and research.
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Rama Variankaval, global head of the center for carbon transition for JP Morgan Securities LLC, speaks during the Aspen Ideas: Climate conference in Miami Beach, Florida, US, on Thursday, March, 9, 2023. Aspen Ideas: Climate is a solutions-focused event designed for the public to interact with and learn from climate leaders whose ideas and actions are critical to address our collective future.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Rama Variankaval is in his twentieth year working at JPMorgan Chase and at the end of 2020, he transitioned from the bank’s corporate finance advisory arm to lead the bank’s strategy on decarbonization, which refers to reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from a system or process.
He believes that decarbonization is a megatrend for the global financial markets, much like digitization has been for the last few decades.
“At any point in time, there are certain megatrends that impact more than just a narrow part of the economy,” Variankaval told CNBC in a video interview earlier in August. In his career at JPMorgan, Variankaval’s mission has been to identify and have a viewpoint on what those megatrends are and then to “direct our energies, our efforts, our balance sheets, to align with those megatrends.”
He believes decarbonization is a megatrend because global regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will touch every business in every part of the world.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re an energy client, or a consumer products client, or a retail client, there is something about this megatrend that is going to impact your business model, your business,” Variankaval told CNBC.
The topic of ESG investing — which stands for environmental, social, and corporate governance and is describes an investing strategy which incorporates non-financial measures of responsibilities — started coming up in 2018 “quite frequently,” Variankaval told CNBC. The focus on ESG was a harbinger of the forthcoming and increasingly intense focus on climate.
Climate change has been an issue for much longer than decarbonization has been a global financial megatrend, but a number of factors coincided to make decarbonization a business imperative.
The Paris Climate Agreement, adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, was “a fairly massive catalyst,” Variankaval said.
By 2020, large asset owners, like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, started to prioritize decarbonization “with higher intensity,” says Variankaval.
As the largest asset owners started to prioritize decarbonization, their influence trickled down and influenced the behavior of other financial gate keepers. Asset managers started asking the companies where they were making investments to start focusing resources and operations on decarbonization. For publicly traded companies, that pressure came in the form of proxy votes on issues relating to decarbonization.
In 2020, JPMorgan formally announced its Center for Carbon Transition, a group responsible for designing and implementing the JPMorgan strategy around climate and sustainability as it pertains to its client-facing businesses, and to also engage with those companies about that strategy “because we felt everyone was thinking about these topics” at the same time, Variankaval told CNBC.
President Joe Biden signs The Inflation Reduction Act with (left to right) Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY; House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-SC; Rep. Frank Pallone, D-NJ; and Rep. Kathy Catsor, D-FL, at the White House on Aug. 16, 2022.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Biden administration’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August 2022, further established the megatrend, accelerating the flow of capital into decarbonization and low-carbon technologies like solar, wind, green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture, and other areas.
The IRA lowered the net cost of capital for these decarbonization technology companies by as much as 5% (500 basis points), according to Variankaval, because it made it cheaper for decarbonization companies to put together their capital stack, or financing for deals. Deals that were typically done with a combination of debt and equity got a third source of capital added to the mix: Tax credits and the associated tax equity.
The IRA happened just as the broader economy simultaneously slowed down because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to combat rising inflation. The higher interest rates in the broader economy counteracted some of the incentives of the IRA, but even against the backdrop of a softening broader economy, the IRA has already turbocharged the sector. By JPMorgan’s count, more than $100 billion of investments have been announced in just the last year with a direct link to the IRA, says Variankaval.
Also, there’s about $50 billion a year going into climate tech companies via private funding and venture capital funding pathways, says Variankaval.
“We see massive amounts of capital formation happening around the climate theme, or around the decarbonization theme, and we absolutely want to be the bank that is a leader in helping our clients navigate that, whether they are small clients or big clients,” Variankaval told CNBC.
While the IRA is specific to the United states, companies and governments are re-evaluating their own industrial policies around the globe to focus more on resiliency than they previously have, says Variankaval.
“We went, I think, a period of 15, 20, 30 years, where efficiency was the number one guiding principle of how you organize yourself,” Variankaval told CNBC. The thinking was: “let’s find the cheapest place to do every part of our supply chain, and stitch it all together,” Variankaval said.
But now, the resiliency of a company’s supply chain is being given as much priority as efficiency. And sustainability is a keystone of resiliency.
In addition to a sharpening global focus on decarbonization, the Covid-19 pandemic brought a particularly strong spotlight on the importance of supply chains, their vulnerability, and the importance of focusing on resiliency in supply chain management.
“All of these are coming together in a way to, I think, be perhaps the largest change in how capital flows that at least I have seen in my lifetime,” Variankaval told CNBC.
In addition to helping its clients adapt to a decarbonizing economy, JPMorgan also sees opportunity in being the bank for the burgeoning and potentially high-growth sector of climate tech companies.
“We absolutely want to be there with them at the ground level, and then have these companies grow with us. We want to be the bank of their choice,” Variankaval said.
Right now, Variankaval says, it’s too soon to know exactly which climate tech companies are going to the winners and losers.
“In a more traditional way of bringing about changes, a lot of research gets done in academic labs and government labs, and then people take it out and test it out in the commercial setting, and figure out what works, what doesn’t work. It’s a multi decade-long process,” Variankaval told CNBC.
It took two decades for the Internet from invention to wide business adoption, but “we don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to climate tech to go through the long-run process,” Variankaval said.
In some segments of climate tech, there are debates about which solutions are better than others that take on a near religious fervor. That’s not particularly helpful in his view.
“We have to deploy capital across all likely solutions, knowing that some may not really work as promised and the use cases may not quite be what we think they could be today. But others might surprises. And some might kick into action sooner, some might just take longer to kick into action. So you need to diversify in terms of technologies, but also in time horizons,” Variankaval told CNBC.
“You can’t really pick winners and losers at this point. We’re just too early. And that is at least how we think about it.”
Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, conducts the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the “Report of Special Counsel John Durham,” in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan issued a subpoena to Citibank on Thursday, demanding information about whether the bank gave law enforcement information about customer transactions in the days surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The subpoena, obtained exclusively by CNBC, came after Jordan previously requested that several financial institutions, including Citibank, provide the information voluntarily. They include Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.
Citibank was the only bank that had not voluntarily complied with the committee’s request, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
The bank’s lawyers told the committee it would only do under a subpoena, according to Jordan. A Citibank spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
The wider probe into whether banks turned over data to the government to assist in the investigation and prosecution of Jan. 6 rioters was sparked by an FBI whistleblower, who disclosed that Bank of America had voluntarily provided a list of people who made transactions with a BofA credit or debit card in the Washington area between Jan. 5 and Jan. 7, 2021.
BofA did not deny the whistleblower’s allegation, telling Fox News earlier this year that that the bank “follows all applicable laws” to “narrowly respond to law enforcement requests.”
Now the committee wants to know if other banks did the same.
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Beset by worries Major U.S. indexes tumbled, weighed down by losses in financial stocks and worries over China’s faltering economy. Asia-Pacific markets followed Wall Street and fell Wednesday. Most regional indexes lost at least 1%. A silver lining: Japanese business’ sentiment climbed in July, alongside the country’s stronger-than-expected economic growth.
Potential banking downgrade Fitch Ratings warned it may downgrade the U.S. banking industry’s credit rating from AA- to A+. Since individual banks cannot be rated higher than the industry, major banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America would be cut to an A+ rating — with a trickle-down effect for smaller banks — if the downgrades happens. Fitch’s warning comes as Moody’s downgraded 10 banks last week.
Higher risk of corporate defaults There’s a higher chance corporate debt in emerging markets might default, according to JPMorgan. The bank raised its forecast for high-yield defaults in Asia from 4.1% to 10% — but that figure drops to just 1% if China property is excluded. That’s a sign of how severe the contagion risk is if Country Garden, the beleaguered Chinese property developer, defaults.
U.S. consumer strong as ever U.S. consumer spending in July remained healthy, according to data from the Commerce Department. Seasonally adjusted retail sales rose 0.7% for the month; economists were expecting 0.4%. Excluding autos, sales rose 1% against a 0.4% forecast. Both figures were the best monthly gains since January, reinforcing sentiment that the consumer can continue supporting economic growth.
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After Fitch warned that it might downgrade the banking industry’s credit rating, shares of big U.S. banks fell. Bank of America lost 3.2%, JPMorgan declined 2.55% and Wells Fargo slid 2.31%.
Regional banks weren’t spared the slaughter, either. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF fell 3.33% after Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari spoke in favor of “significantly further” capital requirements for banks with more than $100 billion in assets. Kashkari also emphasized that if inflation rebounds, rates might have to go higher and “pressures [in regional banks] could flare up again.”
But not everyone’s worried about Fitch’s warning. “The U.S. bank system is overall sound,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance.
“All Fitch was saying was: ‘If we did downgrade the sector again, that would lead us to have to downgrade a lot of the individual banks,’” Diton said. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”
Banking doldrums aside, there were two bright spots in the initial public offering arena. Shares of VinFast, a Vietnamese electric vehicle company, surged from $10 per share to $22 in its debut on the Nasdaq; prices continued rising throughout the day to close at $37.
Meanwhile, Cava shares jumped 9.44% in extended trading after its first earnings report since its IPO in June. Taken together, they suggest that the IPO market is returning to health.
Still, major indexes couldn’t shrug off worries over banks and China. The S&P 500 slipped 1.16%, ending the day below its 50-day moving average for the first time since March — possibly heralding the start of a continued slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.02%, breaking its three-day winning streak. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.14%.
If indexes continue sliding, that’d be their third consecutive losing week. Investors are hoping it’s a brief summer spell, a moment of correction that will end as the weather turns.
A woman walks past JPMorgan Chase & Co’s international headquarters on Park Avenue in New York.
Andrew Burton | Reuters
This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Beset by worries Major U.S. indexes tumbled, weighed down by losses in financial stocks and worries over China’s faltering economy. European markets mostly fell as well. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index lost 0.93%, but Italy’s FTSE MIB added 0.57% — the only major bourse to end the day in the green.
Potential banking downgrade Fitch Ratings warned it may downgrade the U.S. banking industry’s credit rating from AA- to A+. Since individual banks cannot be rated higher than the industry, major banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America would be cut to an A+ rating — with a trickle-down effect for smaller banks — if the downgrades happens. Fitch’s warning comes as Moody’s downgraded 10 banks last week.
U.S. consumer strong as ever U.S. consumer spending in July remained healthy, according to data from the Commerce Department. Seasonally adjusted retail sales rose 0.7% for the month; economists were expecting 0.4%. Excluding autos, sales rose 1% against a 0.4% forecast. Both figures were the best monthly gains since January, reinforcing sentiment that the consumer can continue supporting economic growth.
Rate hike to strengthen ruble Russia’s central bank jacked up interest rates by 3.5 percentage points to 12% at an emergency meeting Tuesday. The bank’s attempting to stop a sudden slide in the Russian ruble, which slumped to nearly 102 against the U.S. dollar Monday. The ruble has since climbed back to around 98.5 as of publication time.
[PRO] Overconfident investors The stock market rally during the first half of this year has made investors overconfident, according to a Bank of America survey. That’s bad — because the “strong tailwind” propelling stocks forwards is fading fast, a BofA analyst wrote in a summary of the survey.
After Fitch warned that it might downgrade the banking industry’s credit rating, shares of big U.S. banks fell. Bank of America lost 3.2%, JPMorgan declined 2.55% and Wells Fargo slid 2.31%.
Regional banks weren’t spared the slaughter, either. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF fell 3.33% after Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari spoke in favor of “significantly further” capital requirements for banks with more than $100 billion in assets. Kashkari also emphasized that if inflation rebounds, rates might have to go higher and “pressures [in regional banks] could flare up again.”
But not everyone’s worried about Fitch’s warning. “The U.S. bank system is overall sound,” said Eric Diton, president and managing director at The Wealth Alliance.
“All Fitch was saying was: ‘If we did downgrade the sector again, that would lead us to have to downgrade a lot of the individual banks,'” Diton said. “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”
Banking doldrums aside, there were two bright spots in the initial public offering arena. Shares of VinFast, a Vietnamese electric vehicle company, surged from $10 per share to $22 in its debut on the Nasdaq; prices continued rising throughout the day to close at $37.
Meanwhile, Cava shares jumped around 8% in extended trading after its first earnings report since its IPO in June. Taken together, they suggest that the IPO market is returning to health.
Still, major indexes couldn’t shrug off worries over banks and China. The S&P 500 slipped 1.16%, ending the day below its 50-day moving average for the first time since March — possibly heralding the start of a continued slide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.02%, breaking its three-day winning streak. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.14%.
If indexes continue sliding, that’d be their third consecutive losing week. Investors are hoping it’s a brief summer spell, a moment of correction that will end as the weather turns.
Kathy Ruemmler, former White House Counsel, appears on “Meet the Press” in Washington, D.C., June 29, 2014.
William B. Plowman | NBCUniversal | Getty Images
Sex predator Jeffrey Epstein was involved in establishing a client relationship between Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and JPMorgan Chase in February 2019, four months before he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges, a bombshell court filing revealed Tuesday.
Ruemmler, who is now general counsel for Goldman Sachs, was touted by Epstein’s personal assistant to JPMorgan as an ideal customer, the filing shows.
The suggestion that JPMorgan take Ruemmler on as a client — which the bank warmly embraced — came almost six years after JPMorgan said it had effectively fired Epstein as a client after internal controls repeatedly raised red flags about him.
And it came five months before Epstein killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail, where he was being held without bail pending trial.
Ruemmler declined to comment through a Goldman Sachs spokesman.
CNBC separately emailed her to ask how she knew Epstein, and what knowledge she had of his history of being convicted in 2008 of a sex crime in Florida.
The Manhattan federal court filing detailing her connection to Epstein was filed by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is suing JPMorgan.
The American territory alleges that JPMorgan enabled and benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women to the Virgin Islands, where he had a home, during the years he maintained accounts at the bank, from 1998 through 2013.
JPMorgan denies any wrongdoing in the case, where the territory is seeking at least $190 million in damages.
The bank last month agreed to settle a similar lawsuit in the same court by an Epstein accuser, paying $290 million to her and other Epstein victims.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in late October.
“Even after his exit right up until his arrest in 2019, JPMorgan continued to work with Epstein,” the Virgin Islands said in its filing.
The filing says that JPMorgan admits “Epstein was involved in the establishment of a customer relationship with Kathryn Ruemmler,” who was the longest-serving White House general counsel under former President Barack Obama
The filing says that in February 2019 Epstein’s assistant, Leslie Groff, offered to introduce Mary Erdoes, a top JPMorgan executive, to Ruemmler, because she wanted to open an account with JPMorgan and Epstein thought the two of them “would bond.”
“Erdoes escalated the referral to Stacey Friedman, JPMorgan’s General Counsel, who responded ‘she is a rock star litigator at Latham. . . . I would think she would be a great client,'” the Virgin Islands said in its filing.
Ruemmler at the time worked at the law firm Latham & Watkins.
In 2020 she joined Goldman Sachs as a partner, and now is Goldman’s chief legal officer and general counsel.
The filing also said that Epstein at one time referred as a potential JPMorgan client Nicholas Ribis, a gaming advisor who for decades ran casinos for former President Donald Trump.
Ribis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
JPMorgan claims in court filings that the Virgin Islands was itself “complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein,” arguing that he gave high-ranking government officials money, advice and favors in exchange for looking the other way when he trafficked young women.
JPMorgan also argues that its former executive Jes Staley, who was friends with Epstein when he was a client of the bank, is responsible for any civil liability of the bank due to its business relationship with the sex offender.
On Tuesday, newly unsealed court filings by the bank show that Epstein was asked by former U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. John de Jongh Jr. for a loan of $215,000 after de Jongh was arrested on embezzlement charges that were later dismissed.
Epstein’s company also paid de Jongh’s wife, Cecile, a $300,000 lump sum severance payment after Epstein killed himself in a federal jail while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges in August 2019, JPMorgan’s documents say. She had worked for Epstein at his Southern Trust Company.
The documents also say that another Epstein employee who worked for him in the Virgin Islands was granted a U.S. Customs and Border Protection security seal, which allowed that worker to “escort passengers through” customs screening areas.
The bank in other court filings has said that Epstein paid for the school tuitions of the children of the de Jonghs, and that Cecile had made efforts to obtain student visas and a work license for young women connected to Epstein.
A spokesman for the Virgin Islands’ Attorney General’s Office told CNBC that Epstein’s loan to former Gov. de Jongh occurred after he left office in 2015. The charges against de Jongh were dropped in early 2016 by the Virgin Islands Department of Justice after he agreed to a separate monetary settlement.
CNBC has reached out to comment from John de Jongh via an asset management company where he is a director.
The Virgin Islands spokesman also said that “it was the federal government and not the Virgin Islands government that granted the ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection security seal.’ “
The Virgin Islands has said that JPMorgan’s leadership kept Epstein as a client for years despite multiple warnings about him being raised internally at the bank, which included payments to young women, and a 2008 sex crime conviction in Florida which led to a jail term.
In its new court filing on Tuesday, the Virgin Islands cited a July 2011 email between Epstein and Erdoes, after JPMorgan’s rapid response team decided that Epstein should be off-boarded as a client, and after JPMorgan’s general counsel told Erdoes that Epstein was “not a person we should do business with — period.”
Erdoes and Epstein emailed after he and the bank agreed to settle his lawsuit against JPMorgan related to money he said he was owed by Bear Stearns, the investment bank taken over by JPMorgan.
“On July 26, 2011, Epstein wrote to Erdoes, ‘lets [sic] move on , [sic] and make some real money,’ ” the filing said.
“Erdoes responded, ‘Onwards and upwards, on so many fronts,’ ” the filing said.
Epstein was not severed as a JPMorgan client for another two years.
The new Virgin Islands filing said that Staley, in his deposition for the lawsuit, disclosed the names of people and companies that Epstein had referred to the bank as potential clients. An unsealed portion of Staley’s deposition was made public Tuesday.
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Among the high-powered names listed in the court filing are Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of Dubai, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, former Treasury Department Secretary Larry Summers and television journalist Katie Couric.
Staley, who had been head of the bank’s asset and wealth management division, testified that he met all those people at Epstein’s townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The deposition also shows that Staley said he had spoken to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in 2006 when Epstein was arrested on Florida state charges of procuring a minor for prostitution, and solicitation of a prostitute.
JPMorgan has denied that claim. “Staley admits that in 2006 Jamie Dimon communicated with him regarding Epstein’s arrest,” the Virgin Islands said in the court filing.
“Staley also testified that on or about July 26, 2006, he spoke to Dimon about Epstein’s indictment because Dimon was his boss and the indictment of Epstein, a client of the bank, ‘was a very public event.'”
Elsewhere in the deposition, Staley answered questions about going to see Epstein after an article was published in 2006 that said, “Jeffrey Epstein craved big homes, elite friends — and, investigators say, underage girls.”
The article also stated that two of “Epstein’s former employees told investigators that young looking girls showed up to perform massages two or three times a day when Epstein was in town.”
The Virgin Islands filing said, “On July 25, 2006, Staley met with Epstein in person at Epstein’s home. In that visit, Epstein admitted to the alleged “conduct of engaging in sex for money with young women” — only denying the ‘ages.'”
Staley afterward wrote Erdoes: “I went and saw him last night. I’ve never seen him so shaken. He also adamantly denies the ages,” Staley wrote Erdoes, the filing notes.
In his deposition, Staley was asked: “The conduct that he was being accused of, he was admitting that he did it. He was just denying that he knew the ages of the victims, right?”
Staley replied, “Correct.”
“And you were reporting that back to the bank, that what was being denied is the ages, right?” a lawyer for the Virgin Islands said.
Staley said, “Right.”
He then conceded that the bank knew that Epstein had admitted to engaging in sex for money with young women, while denying they were underage.
The lawyer then asked, “And so when the bank is receiving that information, they now know what you know, which is, this is the type of conduct that our client is engaging in, and the only dispute that he has about the allegations are the ages of the victims, right?”
A sign for the financial agency Fitch Ratings on a building at the Canary Wharf business and shopping district in London, U.K., on Thursday, March 1, 2012.
Matt Lloyd | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A Fitch Ratings analyst warned that the U.S. banking industry has inched closer to another source of turbulence — the risk of sweeping rating downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks that could even include the likes of JPMorgan Chase.
The ratings agency cut its assessment of the industry’s health in June, a move that analyst Chris Wolfe said went largely unnoticed because it didn’t trigger downgrades on banks.
But another one-notch downgrade of the industry’s score, to A+ from AA-, would force Fitch to reevaluate ratings on each of the more than 70 U.S. banks it covers, Wolfe told CNBC in an exclusive interview at the firm’s New York headquarters.
“If we were to move it to A+, then that would recalibrate all our financial measures and would probably translate into negative rating actions,” Wolfe said.
The credit rating firms relied upon by bond investors have roiled markets lately with their actions. Last week, Moody’s downgraded 10 small and midsized banks and warned that cuts could come for another 17 lenders, including larger institutions like Truist and U.S. Bank. Earlier this month, Fitch downgraded the U.S. long-term credit rating because of political dysfunction and growing debt loads, a move that was derided by business leaders including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
This time, Fitch is intent on signaling to the market that bank downgrades, while not a foregone conclusion, are a real risk, said Wolfe.
The firm’s June action took the industry’s “operating environment” score to AA- from AA because of pressure on the country’s credit rating, regulatory gaps exposed by the March regional bank failures and uncertainty around interest rates.
The problem created by another downgrade to A+ is that the industry’s score would then be lower than some of its top-rated lenders. The country’s two largest banks by assets, JPMorgan and Bank of America, would likely be cut to A+ from AA- in this scenario, since banks can’t be rated higher than the environment in which they operate.
And if top institutions like JPMorgan are cut, then Fitch would be forced to at least consider downgrades on all their peers’ ratings, according to Wolfe. That could potentially push some weaker lenders closer to non-investment grade status.
For instance, Miami Lakes, Florida-based BankUnited, at BBB, is already at the lower bounds of what investors consider investment grade. If the firm, which has a negative outlook, falls another notch, it would be perilously close to a non-investment grade rating.
Wolfe said he didn’t want to speculate on the timing of this potential move or its impact to lower-rated firms.
“We’d have some decisions to make, both on an absolute and relative basis,” Wolfe said. “On an absolute basis, there might be some BBB- banks where we’ve already discounted a lot of things and maybe they could hold onto their rating.”
JPMorgan declined to comment for this article, while Bank of America and BankUnited didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
In terms of what could push Fitch to downgrade the industry, the biggest factor is the path of interest rates determined by the Federal Reserve. Some market forecasters have said the Fed may already be done raising rates and could cut them next year, but that isn’t a foregone conclusion. Higher rates for longer than expected would pressure the industry’s profit margins.
“What we don’t know is, where does the Fed stop? Because that is going to be a very important input into what it means for the banking system,” he said.
A related issue is if the industry’s loan defaults rise beyond what Fitch considers a historically normal level of losses, said Wolfe. Defaults tend to rise in a rate-hiking environment, and Fitch has expressed concern on the impact of office loan defaults on smaller banks.
“That shouldn’t be shocking or alarming,” he said. “But if we’re exceeding [normalized losses], that’s what maybe tips us over.”
The impact of such broad downgrades is hard to predict.
In the wake of the recent Moody’s cuts, Morgan Stanley analysts said that downgraded banks would have to pay investors more to buy their bonds, which further compresses profit margins. They even expressed concerns some banks could get locked out of debt markets entirely. Downgrades could also trigger unwelcome provisions in lending agreements or other complex contracts.
“It’s not inevitable that it goes down,” Wolfe said. “We could be at AA- for the next 10 years. But if it goes down, there will be consequences.”
Banco Santander ‘s stock is in rare form this year. The Spanish lender’s U.S.-listed shares are up 32% in 2023, on pace for their biggest annual gain since 2009 — when they rallied 73%. Santander’s year-to-date pop is easily outperforming major U.S. banks. JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are up 14% and 5%, respectively in that time. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and Bank of America are both down for the year. The advance comes after a tough 2022 for Santander, when its U.S. shares lost 10%. The stock is also down in four of the past five years. SAN YTD mountain SAN in 2023 Bank of America thinks the 166-year-old bank can build on its strong 2023 performance, saying it trades at a low relative valuation. “Santander is a global bank and has retained product factories within the group; this has a value, which we think is not adequately reflected in its valuation,” analyst Antonio Reale wrote last month. “Products like payments, consumer finance provide the group with scale and scope. This is while SAN trades on the lowest [price to pre-provision operating profit] multiple in Europe. … We believe that’s unjustified – reiterate Buy and top pick in Spain.” Reale has a price target of $5.09 per share on Santander’s U.S.-listed shares. That implies upside of more than 28% over the next 12 months. Last month, Santander reported second-quarter net income and revenue that exceeded analyst expectations. Net interest income and trading income also topped StreetAccount estimates. However, some analysts said they were concerned about the company’s Brazil business, which reported a much weaker-than-expected profit for the quarter. But Bank of America’s Reale said earnings in Brazil are “close to trough, approaching a key turning point with SELIC cuts due.” Selic refers to Brazil’s benchmark interest rate, which was cut earlier this month. On top of that, Reale said Santander has “de-risked its book, shifting its mix from subprime to prime clients. … We expect the auto market to remain resilient, aided by tight labour markets, excess savings, and high used vehicles prices.” — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
Josh Brown, Bryn Talkington, Stephanie Link, and Sarat Sethi join ‘Halftime Report’ to discuss Moody’s credit rating cut, long term investment opportunities in financials and regional banks struggling to grow lending.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee during an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 15, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
U.S. regulators on Tuesday announced a combined $549 million in penalties against Wells Fargo and a raft of smaller or non-U.S. firms that failed to maintain electronic records of employee communications.
The Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed charges and $289 million in fines against 11 firms for “widespread and longstanding failures” in record-keeping, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also said it fined four banks a total of $260 million for failing to maintain records required by the agency.
It was regulators’ latest effort to stamp out the pervasive use of secure messaging apps like Signal, Meta‘s WhatsApp or Apple‘s iMessage by Wall Street employees and managers. Starting in late 2021, the watchdogs secured settlements with bigger players including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Fines related to the issue total more than $2 billion, according to the SEC and CFTC.
“Today’s actions stem from our continuing sweep to ensure that regulated entities, including broker-dealers and investment advisers, comply with their recordkeeping requirements, which are essential for us to monitor and enforce compliance with the federal securities laws,” Sanjay Wadhwa, deputy director of enforcement at the SEC, said in the release.
The firms admitted that from at least 2019, employees used side channels like WhatsApp to discuss company business, failing to preserve records “in violation of federal securities laws,” the SEC said Tuesday.
Wells Fargo, the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by assets and a relatively small player on Wall Street, racked up the most fines on Tuesday, with $200 million in penalties.
“We are pleased to resolve this matter,” said Wells Fargo spokeswoman Laurie Kight.
French banks BNP Paribas and Societe Generale were fined $110 million each, while the Bank of Montreal was fined $60 million. The SEC also fined Japanese firms Mizuho Securities and SMBC Nikko Securities and boutique U.S. investment banks including Houlihan Lokey, Moelis and Wedbush Securities.
Bank of Montreal has “made significant enhancements to our compliance procedures in recent years” and is pleased to have the matter behind it, said spokesman Jeff Roman.
The other banks penalized Tuesday declined to comment.
Apart from the fines, banks were ordered to “cease and desist” from future violations and hire consultants to review bank policies, the SEC said.
On Wall Street, company records of emails and other communications via official channels are often automatically generated to adhere to requirements that clients are treated fairly. But after some of the industry’s biggest scandals of the past decade hinged on incriminating messages preserved in chatrooms, workers often leaned on side channels to conduct business.
Encrypted messages sent on third-party platforms like Signal make it impossible for banks to record and retain logs of interactions. At Wells Fargo and other banks, the practice was pervasive and happening at all levels; even the managers responsible for enforcing the rules were guilty of the practice, regulators said Tuesday.
An analysis of 13 Wells Fargo employees, for instance, found that all had violated the bank’s communications policies by using text messages to communicate with co-workers and market participants. They used the side channels to communicate with more than 100 other employees, including senior supervisors, over thousands of messages, according to the CFTC complaint.
“Employees’ use of unapproved communication methods was not hidden within the firm,” the CFTC said. “To the contrary, certain supervisors—the very people responsible for supervising employees to prevent this misconduct—routinely communicated using unapproved methods on their personal devices.”
David Solomon, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs, participates in a panel discussion during the annual Milken Institute Global Conference at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on April 29, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.
Michael Kovac | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Goldman Sachs is known as Wall Street’s top brand, a juggernaut employing some of the world’s best traders and investment bankers.
But it’s facing an inflection point: Those high-profile businesses have fallen out of favor with investors since the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, it’s been steady, fee-generating areas like wealth and asset management that are valued far more than boom-or-bust activities like trading or advising on mergers.
Goldman shares have been stuck at a relatively low price-to-tangible-book value, a key industry metric that measures how the market sizes up a firm compared to the value of its hard assets. Goldman trades for just above one times price to TBV, while rivals including JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are valued at roughly double that.
Which is why Goldman CEO David Solomon has hitched his fortunes to asset and wealth management. His latest move positions Goldman to take advantage of two big trends in finance: The rise of alternative assets including private equity and growth in the fortunes of the ultrarich.
Still, concerns surfaced recently after former asset management co-head Julian Salisbury departed Goldman for a smaller rival. Salisbury, who was most recently chief investment officer for AWM, is joining San Francisco-based private equity firm Sixth Street. His former co-head, Luke Sarsfield, also left earlier this year, helping fuel worries about a brain drain at the firm.
Goldman, which put former trading co-head Marc Nachmann in charge of AWM in October, says the company has a deep bench and that the average tenure of partners is its longest in a decade.
Simply put, Goldman portfolio managers make bets across the universe of financial instruments, either on behalf of clients or using the bank’s own funds.
That runs the gamut from the least risky, plain-vanilla holdings like money market funds, to fixed-income products like corporate bonds funds, stock ETFs and mutual funds, and finally to alternative assets including private equity, private credit (i.e. loans to corporations), real estate and hedge funds.
Compared to rivals JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, which are big players in traditional assets like stock funds, Goldman is more weighted to the esoteric world of alternative investments, which is why it’s sometimes said that Goldman wants to build a “mini-Blackstone” within the bank.
Goldman gets paid through management and incentive fees, which swell as funds attract more assets. Altogether, Goldman has $2.71 trillion in assets under supervision as of June 30, which includes wealth management assets.
The industry has coalesced around a model where financial advisors charge fees, often 1% to 2% of a typical client’s assets annually, to manage investments. They also can earn fees for loans or other products geared towards the wealthy.
Goldman does particularly well with the ultra-rich, defined as those with at least $30 million to invest; it has about 8% of that cohort in the U.S., according to a company presentation. In fact, Goldman’s average ultra-high net worth client keeps about $60 million at the bank.
Where Goldman fares less well is serving the merely rich; it has only about 1% of the high-net worth market, or those who have between $1 million and $10 million to invest.
The bank has more than $1 trillion in wealth management client assets. While significant, key rivals are both larger and growing faster: Morgan Stanley had $4.9 trillion in client assets as of June 30.
Goldman is still very much tethered to the ups and downs of Wall Street. The bank’s trading and advisory division generated two-thirds of Goldman’s $23.1 billion in revenues so far this year.
A pandemic-era boom in deals and trading in 2020 and 2021 was quickly followed by a bust, and last quarter marked the industry’s lowest investment banking haul in a decade. That’s caused Goldman to report the steepest profit drop this year of the six biggest U.S. banks, making the push for sustainable sources of growth even more urgent.
For Solomon, who has battled criticism over his ill-fated retail banking push, leadership style and hobbies, success in AWM would provide a welcome counterpoint to those who say he’s made too many errors.
Not exactly. Solomon has made tough decisions to consolidate the various pockets of investment at the firm, and then to focus on raising outside funds while shrinking wagers made with house money. That’s upset some insiders used to autonomy over decades of operation.
He’s also shuffled the deck several times. In a 2020 reorganization, Solomon pulled apart asset and wealth management and assigned Salisbury and later Sarsfield to co-lead the asset manager, a move he reversed when he reunited the businesses and named Nachmann to lead AWM.
That upheaval has led to the departure of the ex-asset management co-heads, as well as other senior leaders.
Despite the turbulence, AWM has been making progress against its fee and fundraising goals, supporting the idea that Goldman’s reputation for savvy investing gives it an edge.
The bank is on track to reach its goal of generating at least $10 billion in fee revenue by next year. And its total assets under supervision rose by $42 billion to $2.71 trillion in the second quarter.
While Solomon cautioned that Goldman’s “asset management journey” would take two to three years before meaningfully helping margins, he sounded optimistic.
“I feel very, very good about the strategic decisions that we’re making,” Solomon told investors in July. “We see a clear line of sight, and we’re going to make progress.”
