JPMorgan Loses $1.5 Billion Since July on Debt Prices

By Cathy Chan

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. will write down the value of mortgage-backed assets by at least $1.5 billion this quarter after credit-market turmoil and the U.S. housing slump deepened.

Trading conditions ``have substantially deteriorated'' since July, and ``sharply widened'' spreads on mortgage-backed securities and loans caused losses, the second-biggest U.S. bank by market value said in a regulatory filing late yesterday. Financial firms have reported more than $492 billion of losses and writedowns on debt securities since the subprime-mortgage market meltdown in 2007.

``The global credit market hasn't much improved,'' said Tim Leung, who helps manage about $1.5 billion at IG Investment Ltd. in Hong Kong. ``The risk aversion to lending to financial institutions is still high and everyone is still very cautious.''

JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has overseen more than $12 billion of writedowns, losses and credit provisions on mortgage-tainted assets through the second quarter. U.S. bond investors bought Treasury notes and sold debt issued by banks, pushing yields for financial companies to the highest relative to Treasury notes in at least a decade in July amid mounting losses at banks.

The bank held $16.3 billion of ``legacy leveraged loans,'' or unsold high-risk lending it underwrote, and unfunded commitments as of June 30, and $11.6 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities, the filing showed.

JPMorgan wrote down the value of leveraged loans and mortgage-related assets by $1.1 billion in the second quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Falling Profit

It expects the global economy ``to continue to be weak, for capital markets to remain under stress and for a continued decline in U.S. housing prices,'' the filing said. ``These factors have affected, and are likely to continue to adversely impact, the firm's credit losses, overall business volumes and earnings.''

U.S. banks have tightened lending terms on all major loan categories over the previous three months, the Federal Reserve said in its quarterly survey on Aug. 11. Losses from the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market have caused money- market funds to stop buying asset-backed commercial paper and forced funds to unwind holdings, driving up yields.

JPMorgan's second-quarter net income fell 53 percent to $2 billion on mortgage-related writedowns and costs from the takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. It marked down the value of loans promised to fund last year's buyouts by 20 cents on the dollar last quarter.

Home Prices

Dimon, 52, said in a statement that accompanied the earnings last month that while a weakening economy means financial markets will remain ``under stress,'' the New York- based company's capital position is strong. JPMorgan's decision in 2007 to expand in mortgages was `wrong,'' he said.

``For someone as big as JPMorgan, I don't think the number is that material,'' said David Verschoor, a credit trader at BNP Paribas SA in Hong Kong. ``I don't think it really changes much at all. Once the banks take their losses, that is when the market starts recovering.''

Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas dropped 15.8 percent in May, the biggest decline since record keeping began in 2001, according to the S&P Case-Shiller Home-Price Index.

Prices of high-risk, high-yield loans fell in early July to the lowest levels since April. The average actively traded loan fell to 89.32 cents on the dollar last month, compared with more than 92 cents in mid-June, according to Standard & Poor's LCD.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cathy Chan in Hong Kong at kchan14@bloomberg.net