London Whale

About London Whale

The London Whale was a trading loss at JPMorgan Chase in 2012. Bruno Iksil, a trader in the London office, had taken such large positions in credit derivatives that he was nicknamed the London Whale by other traders. The trades went wrong, losing 6.2 billion. CEO Jamie Dimon initially dismissed the losses as a tempest in a teapot. The loss damaged JPMorgans reputation as the best risk managed major bank. JPMorgan paid 920 million in penalties. The London Whale demonstrated that even well capitalized banks with strong risk management could take enormous losses from complex derivatives trades by individual traders.