NEW YORK (AP) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s news that its credit losses of the past month and a half already exceed its second-quarter losses is sobering proof that an end to the credit crisis is still far off in the future."The market keeps surprising us," said Octavio Marenzi, head of financial consultancy Celent. "It is difficult to say where the bottom is."
The economy's continuing weakness and a lack of buyers for mortgage-backed securities and other troubled debt remain the greatest obstacles to improvement in the credit markets. Those factors are combining to send prices for the debt falling and in turn are forcing financial companies to again write down the value of their mortgage-backed holdings and report billions of dollars in extra losses.
"After a while, you can only write down so far," Marenzi said. "The natural bottom is around zero, and we're rapidly approaching that point."
Read More
