Charlie Gasparino: Jamie Dimon Is "Set For A Fall"

Posted by Bess Levin, Jan 05, 2009, 9:35am

Picture 488.pngI'm not saying definitively that Charlie Gasparino's latest column for the Daily Beast can be chalked up to excessive consumption of Italian delicacies, such as sopressata and braciole, which, while delicious, are filled with toxic nitrates that when OD'd on can cause imbalances in the brain, but I am saying it's a possibility. According to Chaz, boy toy CEO Jamie Dimon is going down. But let's backtrack for a sec. There are apparently a few reasons why JPMorgan is the current king of the Street. They include the fact that Bearpont Morgan Mutual's team fucks up the least ("[JPM's] management team is among the most competent group of people you're going to meet on Wall Street"), because Dimon really gets this shit ("he reads balance sheets and understands just about ever nook and cranny of the investment business") and because not unlike Joey from the neighborhood, he'll take the time in the middle of the day to crack your testicles. Sayeth Gasparino:

...the main reason JP Morgan is on top is Dimon...maybe most of all [because] he's a ball buster. "Some people don't know how to take Jamie because in the middle of the day, he'll call you up and break your balls asking you a million questions about your business," said one former Dimon manager. "And it works. You get to know your business better and where the bodies are buried. And if you don't like it, you can leave, and he'll get someone else who does."

Nice work if you can get it, but, according to Chaz, Dimon is losing his grip and fast. CG, of course, qualifies his bold statement significantly, but that's neither here nor there:


Yet for all of his acclaim, skill, and accomplishment, Jamie Dimon is set for a fall. Not a fall on the scale of Lehman Brothers' Dick Fuld or Bear Stearns' Jimmy Cayne. But a fall that will put into question his current status as the King of Wall Street.*

[...]

Dimon is feeling that heat...from analysts, who believe his firm will post a lost this quarter, the first since he became CEO in 2006; from fellow CEOs, who believe he took advantage of competitors during the height of the financial crisis in mid-September; and now even some of his own board members, who believe their straight-talking CEO spoke a little too straight in a recent CNBC interview when he described in graphic terms the problems facing JP Morgan and the rest of the financial business. Following Dimon's remarks, which he then repeated in a speech, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 200 points, and shares of JP Morgan were among the biggest losers, tanking nearly 10 percent.

We would never for a second suggest that CG was wrong for fear of busted knee-caps, but it seems there may be a chance his judgment is being clouded (by smoke originating from a grav-bong):

Already I hear the schadenfreude picking up: When I asked one Wall Street CEO to assess Dimon's performance he pointed to the nearly 40 percent drop in JP Morgan shares since the beginning of the fourth quarter. This executive believes JP Morgan will now join other banks and experience problems beyond the fourth quarter and well into next year as credit card debt, student loans, and other debt on the bank's balance sheet begin to falter. "The market is telling you something is wrong," the executive said. "The stock market is saying one thing, and his image in the press is saying something else."

*This is beautiful, really, because the "fall" is now defined as anything from just short of running a bank into the ground to tripping down the steps of 270 Park and then looking around quickly to see if anyone noticed.

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