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JP Morgan saves WaMu

By
Real Estate Agent with Homesmart Elite

A seizure of WaMu has been widely anticipated for some time because of the company's heavy mortgage-related losses.

It has seen its stock price plummet 95 percent from a 52-week high of $36.47 to its close of $1.69 Thursday,

JPMorgan Chase, which acquired Bear Stearns Cos. last March, also said it would sell $8 billion in common stock to raise its capital position.

Tonight, .... JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. came to the rescue of Washington Mutual Inc. Thursday, buying the thrift's banking assets after WaMu was seized by federal regulators in the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank. This is the second time in six months that JPMorgan Chase has taken over a major financial institution crippled by bad bets in the mortgage market.

The deal will cost JPMorgan Chase $1.9 billion, and the bank said in a statement it planned to write down WaMu's loan portfolio by approximately $31 billion.

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