Jamie Dimon Says Dirty Short Sellers Should Be Locked Up

Reuters reports that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was in fine form on PBS Monday. Dimon said that US regulators should launch an investigation to ascertain whether short sellers of Bear Stearns stock spread false rumors to deliberately bring down the Wall Street firm.

Dimon said: 'Where there's smoke there's fire....This is even worse than insider trading. This is deliberate and malicious destruction of value and people's lives. (And) they shouldn't go to jail for a short period of time. If I was the SEC (US market regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission), I'd find out who made the money and investigate like they do when they come after us all the time - e-mails, phone records, you name it'.

JPMorgan's boss also said that his company is about three-quarters through the integration of Bear, and that the firm's risk-weighted assets have halved since the takeover in March.

Bloomberg reports that, according to a US regulatory filing, Goldman Sachs lost money on 20 trading days in the 3 months to May 31. The firm made over $100m, however, on 27 days in the period.

Finally, Reuters reports that big appears to be better now in the hedge fund industry. The news agency quotes Ron Geffner, from law firm Sadis & Goldberg, who said: 'What we are finding is that managers of varying sizes are either merging with or selling a stake in their businesses to larger institutions. And in many cases the primary reason is to gain access to better infrastructure and distribution'.

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