Courtesy of Pam Martens
Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
According to the 13F filing that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the quarter ending December 31, 2019, it held 59.5 million shares of JPMorgan Chase with a total value at that time of $8.29 billion. By June 30 of this year, that position had been trimmed by more than half, to 22.2 million shares. By September 30, one day after JPMorgan Chase had just admitted to its fourth and fifth felony count in the past six years, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, Berkshire Hathaway’s position in JPMorgan Chase tallied up to just under 1 million shares, a 98 percent reduction from the beginning of the year, according to the SEC filing Berkshire Hathaway made on Monday.
And it’s not like Buffett is simply getting out of all big bank stocks. According to the same 13F filing for September 30, Berkshire Hathaway still held a whopping $24 billion in Bank of America stock; $4.7 billion in U.S. Bancorp; $3 billion in Wells Fargo; and $2.5 billion in Bank of New York Mellon.
Jamie Dimon has served as Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase during all five felony counts as well as a much broader crime spree that has resulted in fines and settlements of more than $37 billion. The bank has been charged with rigging everything from electricity markets in the U.S. to interest rate benchmarks in Europe to foreign currency, precious metals, and even the U.S. Treasury market. (See detailed rap sheet below.) Despite a rap sheet that rivals organized crime, the Board of Directors of JPMorgan Chase has stuck with Dimon to sit at the helm of what is now the largest federally-insured bank in the United States.
Now the smart money seems to be saying it’s had enough. In addition to Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, George Soros’ investment arm, Soros Fund Management LLC has dumped all of its shares of JPMorgan Chase according to its 13F filing of September 30. That compares with the 258,252 shares it owned on June 30, 2020.…
