Business

Two weeks after JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's now infamous "Bitcoin is a fraud" comments, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman told The Wall Street Journal today that Dimon is wrong and "Bitcoin is certainly more than a fad... the concept of an anonymous currency is an interesting concept."

Gorman added that Bitcoin faces questions over regulation and entry barriers... "There is a government risk to it... I don't think it should be illegal."

A Dallas jury ordered JPMorgan Chase to pay more than $4 billion in damages for mishandling the estate of a former American Airlines executive.

S&P futures are set for a higher open (+ 0.1%) despite the expected hit to the Dow from Nike which is down over 3% on unexpectedly poor revenue growth, as European stocks gain while Asian shares dropped. Like yesterday when the big story was the jump in the USD ahead of Yellen's (rather hawkish) speech, so today the greenback's levitation has continued, this time propelled by today's unveiling of Trump's tax plan.

Something appears to be off. After two consecutive admissions by Janet Yellen that the Fed has lost its grasp on the "mystery" of inflation, the market no longer appears eager to chase the direction of every Fed proclamation, especially the recent, hawkish ones. And, as Bloomberg's Mark Cudmore writes this morning, "whether it’s because the Fed has lost credibility or just because Yellen is viewed as a lame duck approaching the end of her term, it doesn’t matter - U.S. rates and the dollar show investors aren’t buying what she’s selling."

Less than a decade after being forced to take a taxpayer funded bailout to avoid an embarrassing bankruptcy filing, Citibank, proving that they learned precisely nothing from the so-called 'great recession,' has put a 35 year old in charge of once again making the bank into a powerhouse in the Synthetic CDO market.  But please don't worry about the risk because this time Citi says they're building the business in a "way that insulates them from any losses."  Here's more from Bloomberg: