At Year End, JPMorgan Chase Held Over $1 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits Versus $119 Billion at First Republic

[Gunnar Larson]

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/03/at-year-end-jpmorgan-chase-held-over-1-trillion-in-uninsured-deposits-versus-119-billion-at-first-republic/


Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in
the U.S., which is also ranked the riskiest global bank by its regulators.
But instead of getting his own house in order in the midst of a banking
crisis, Dimon has been peculiarly focused elsewhere.

Over the past five days, Jamie Dimon’s legions of publicists have been
burning up the phone lines with reporters, pushing the narrative that Jamie
Dimon is some kind of financial wizard who needs to have a seat at the
table to save the regional bank, First Republic Bank. (Scroll down here to
see the exhaustive public relations effort that has gone into this
narrative.)

Last Thursday, news hit the wire services that Dimon had lined up 11 banks
willing to place $30 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic
Bank. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo each
ponied up $5 billion – or two-thirds of the $30 billion. The Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) caps federal deposit insurance at
$250,000 per depositor, per bank.

Taking $5 billion of your bank’s shareholders’ money and throwing it at a
regional bank whose stock price is collapsing, was not viewed as the
brightest of ideas by the stock market. Last Friday, the day after the deal
was announced, shares of First Republic Bank dropped 32 percent. Yesterday,
First Republic’s share price collapsed by another 47 percent. Over the
weekend, S&P Global downgraded First Republic’s credit rating for a second
time in a week to deeper junk status. Year-to-date, First Republic Bank has
lost 90 percent of its market value. What exactly is there left to save?

We should also note that First Republic Bank’s Palm Beach, Florida branch
is where Donald Trump’s hush money was wired to porn star Stormy Daniels by
his attorney, Michael Cohen. (See our reporting here and the Wall Street
Journal’s here.)

Today, a headline appears at Bloomberg News that provides a big clue as to
what Jamie Dimon’s frantic obsession with First Republic Bank is really
about, that is, use a collapsing regional bank to get Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen on board to push for a government guarantee on all deposits,
insured and uninsured, at all FDIC banks. By framing this as coming to the
rescue of regional banks, rather than another crony bailout of the
unaccountable mega banks on Wall Street, Jamie Dimon doesn’t have to
explain to his compromised Board of Directors why 69 percent of the bank’s
deposits were uninsured at year end. (See: If You’re Baffled as to Why
JPMorgan Chase’s Board Hasn’t Sacked Jamie Dimon as the Bank Racked Up 5
Felony Counts – Here’s Your Answer.)

Our scenario is supported by the following hard facts:

First Republic Bank’s regulatory filing for December 31, 2022 shows that it
held $176.25 billion in deposits, of which $119.47 billion were uninsured,
or 68 percent of all deposits. JPMorgan Chase’s same regulatory filing
(FFIEC Call Report) for December 31, 2022 shows that at year-end it held
$1.527 trillion in deposits of which an estimated $1.058 trillion were
uninsured – or 69 percent.

JPMorgan Chase's Uninsured Deposits

Yellen’s upcoming actions on this matter would have a lot more credibility
had she not decided to line her pockets with millions of dollars in
speaking fees from the mega banks on Wall Street after being replaced as
Chair of the Fed in 2018. (See Janet Yellen’s Cash Haul of $7 Million Is
Just the Tip of the Iceberg; She Failed to Report Her Wall Street Speaking
Fees from JPMorgan and Others in 2018.)
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