Um, wait a second. The profitable part of the business came from the free money that they received yet CNBC glosses over that quickly. The losses come from their bad business practices, which sadly, were generally better than others on Wall Street. Wall Street will use the high profits from their free money to justify their obscene bonuses and conveniently ignore the rest which is very troubling. Not being able to provide guidance in any certain way moving into 2010 is what should really stand out. It says a lot about their success last year. If their business was strong without those handouts, they wouldn't be so nervous about 2010, but they are. After the last few years the banks will be very hard pressed to find anyone, anywhere who will be interested in helping them any time soon.
This is good news?
The bank's large mortgage and credit card businesses have seen rising credit costs in the last year, offset only by record investment banking revenue.
JPMorgan said it set aside $4.2 billion to cover mortgage losses in the fourth quarter, up $653 million from the same quarter a year earlier.
Loan loss reserves in its commercial banking unit increased to $494 million from $190 million.
Prime mortgage net charge-offs -- loans the bank does not expect to be repaid -- soared to $568 million, or an annualized 3.81 percent of the book, from $195 million, or 1.2 percent, a year earlier.
