JPMorgan chief: Traders did not understand the risks

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, will today admit London-based traders who cost the bank more than $2bn this year "did not have a requisite understanding of the risks they took".

Dimon will outline his reasons for the bank's failures in a written witness statement published before his appearance at a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington DC, the Times reports. He will say the trading strategy adopted by the Chief Investment Office was "poorly conceived and vetted" and that some of the bank's managers were "ineffective in challenging" the trades, the paper reports. Traders in the London office exacerbated losses by using additional financial instruments to protect their trading positions rather than unwinding the situation, according to Dimon. Dimon...