London Whale, JPMorgan’s

The “London Whale” or the “whale trades” is convenient shorthand for the massive $6.2 billion loss suffered by JPMorgan Chase in the first two quarters of 2012 from a failed trading strategy in the synthetic credit portfolio (SCP) of the chief investment office (CIO). Near the end of the first quarter, speculation swirled in the markets about the identity of the mysterious trader, known at the time only as the London Whale, who was taking huge positions in synthetic credit derivatives. Later revealed to be Bruno Iksil, a trader in the London office of JPMorgan Chase, this low-level figure was merely the public face of a complex situation, which resulted not only from misconduct by several individuals at the bank but also from systemic weaknesses ...