The unit at the centre of JPMorgan Chase's $2 billion trading loss has built up positions totalling more than $100 billion in asset-backed securities and structured products -- the complex, risky bonds at the centre of the financial crisis in 2008.

These holdings are in addition to those in credit derivatives that led to the losses and have mired the bank in regulatory investigations and criticism.

The unit, the chief investment office (CIO), has been the biggest buyer of European mortgage-backed bonds and other complex debt securities such as collateralised loan obligations in all markets for three years, more than a dozen senior traders and credit experts have told the Financial Times.

This Financial Times story was posted on their website shortly after midnight...and is posted in the clear in this GATA release...and the link is here.

Details continue to emerge regarding JP Morgan's shocking multi-billion trading losses.

However, the biggest behind-the-scenes report so far was just published by The Wall Street Journal and written by Monica Langley.

Here's how Dimon first found out about the losses: On April 30, associates who were gathered in a conference room handed Mr. Dimon summaries and analyses of the losses. But there were no details about the trades themselves. "I want to see the positions!" he barked, throwing down the papers, according to attendees. "Now! I want to see everything!"

When Mr. Dimon saw the numbers, these people say, he couldn't breathe.

This story was posted on the businessinsider.com website late yesterday evening...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it along. The link is here.

Just when you thought that bankers didn't have a soul, here's a 2:32 minute video clip from ABC News that will warm the cockles of your heart. Of course he's not a New York banker, so that's probably one of his saving graces. It's cute and definitely worth watching. I thank reader Brad Robertson for sending it along...and the link to the youtube.com video is here.

Something funny happened in the aftermath of the US fraudclosure settlement, in which millions of backlogged housing units were supposed to enter the foreclosure process and begin the clearing of the nearly 9 million housing units in shadow inventory: nothing.

Because as RealtyTrac disclosed overnight, in April the US saw a mere 188,780 foreclosures events of various type (NOD, auction, REO) take place. Why is this number significant? Because it is the lowest in 5 years, despite shadow inventory in the US now being virtually the highest ever.

This zerohedge.com posting from yesterday was sent to me by Casey Research's own Alex Daley, for which I thank him...and the link is here.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is considering cutting as many as 25,000 jobs, or 8 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs and help the company contend with ebbing demand for computers and services, people briefed on the plans said.

The number to be cut includes 10,000 to 15,000 from Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise services group, which sells a range of information-technology services and has been beset by declining profitability, said these people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final and may change.

Meg Whitman, chief executive officer since September, is seeking to reverse the growth slump that led to the ouster of her predecessor, Leo Apotheker. The company’s PC sales are dropping as consumers favor tablets, such as Apple Inc.’s iPad, and it has been slow to adapt to the shift toward cloud computing, away from the IT services Hewlett-Packard provides.

This Bloomberg story was courtesy of reader 'David in California'...and the link is here.

A survey of manufacturing activity from the Federal Reserve's Philadelphia branch tumbled to -5.8 this month from 8.5 in April, where any reading below zero signals contraction.

Although Thursday's survey only covers Pennsylvania and surrounding states, economists take it as an early reading on America's wider manufacturing industry.

The steep decline comes as Europe's escalating debt crisis dominates thinking in Wall Street and Washington. Federal Reserve policymakers cited the region's woes at the central threat to the US recovery this week.

Should the drop in the manufacturing index prove to be the start of a run of weaker activity, economists expect Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to take further measures to help the economy.

This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday evening...and it's Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

Italy increased security Thursday at 14,000 sites, and assigned bodyguards to protect 550 individuals after a nuclear energy company official was shot and letter bombs directed to the tax collection agency.

Under the enhanced measures, Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri deployed 20,000 law enforcement officers to protect individuals and sensitive sites. In addition, 4,200 military personnel already assigned throughout Italy will be redeployed according to new priorities.

"Based on a thorough analysis of the situation, Interior Cancellieri has confirmed the need to maintain a high level of vigilance, strengthen the security measures against sensitive targets and those exposed to specific risks," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

This AP story was filed from Rome yesterday...and was posted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I thank reader 'David in California' for his second offering in today's column...and the link is here.

The European Central Bank has stopped providing liquidity to some Greek banks as they have not been successfully recapitalized, the ECB said on Wednesday, confirming news earlier reported exclusively by Reuters.

The news sent the euro lower against the dollar, fanning concerns among investors and in Greece that the country may have to leave the euro zone.

The development highlights the weak state of the banking sector in Greece, where Greeks are pulling euros out of the banks in fear that their country may exit the European single currency despite the declared determination of EU powers Germany and France to keep Athens in the monetary union.

This Reuters piece filed from Berlin and Frankfurt was posted on their website Wednesday afternoon...and I lifted it from yesterday's King Report. The link is here.

Bank of America said it expects a "powerful short squeeze" in risk assets as speculative funds unwind positions, led by a rebound in battered bank stocks and Club Med bonds. The euro would surge 10pc to $1.40 against the US dollar after dipping first to $1.20 in the immediate panic.

The benign outcome assumes that the European Central Bank steps in with massive support, backed by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and key central banks along the lines of concerted action in 2008-2009.

Bank of America said EU authorities will pull out the stops to keep Greece in the system as they weigh the full dangers of contagion. Should that fail, it expects a series of dramatic moves.

"The global central banks are going to respond with the biggest flood of liquidity the world has ever seen. It will make the LTRO (the ECB's €1 trillion lending to banks) look like small change."

This story was posted on The Telegraph's website early yesterday evening. I thank Nick Laird for bringing it to our attention...and it's a must read. The link is here.

Spain moved back into the eye of the eurozone storm on Thursday, as the country’s borrowing costs rocketed to unsustainable levels and the country's banking sector was hit by mass downgrades.

Moody's slashed the ratings of 16 Spanish banks on Thursday evening, citing the reduced ability of the Spanish government to provide support to the sector, as well as the "adverse operating conditions" characterised by a renewed recession.

The rating agency also downgraded Santander UK, although, at "A2," it is still rated one notch above its parent bank Banco Santander. Moody's highlighted that Santander UK has "no direct exposure to the Spanish government (or regional governments)".

Earlier in the day, shares in Bankia, the country’s fourth biggest bank, plunged by as much as 29pc amid reports that depositors had pulled out €1bn in the past week.

This story was posted in The Telegraph late Thursday evening...and I thank Roy Stephens for bringing this article to our attention. The link is here.

Sir Mervyn said the recovery would be "slow and uncertain" as the economy tried to navigate its way through a potential "storm heading our way from the continent."

"We have been through a big global financial crisis, the biggest downturn in world output since the 1930s, the biggest banking crisis in this country's history, the biggest fiscal deficit in our peacetime history, and our biggest trading partner, the euro area, is tearing itself apart without any obvious solution," Sir Mervyn King said.

This video, posted over at The Telegraph late Wednesday afternoon, runs 2:22 minutes...and is worth watching. I thank Roy Stephens for his final offering in today's column...and the link is here.

China's "Big Four" banks made almost no new loans in the first two weeks of May, after a surprise drop in new loans in April, highlighting liquidity strains that have persisted despite the central bank's monetary easing.

Citing an unidentified insider, the China Securities Journal reported that two of the banks saw only minor loan growth of less than 10 billion yuan ($1.59 billion), while new lending actually contracted at the other two. The article didn't say which banks fell into either category.

The "Big Four" - Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, China Construction Bank Corp, Bank of China Ltd and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd - usually account for 30 percent of new yuan loans each year.

The dismal performance followed an overall drop in new loans last month. Financial institutions in China extended 681.8 billion yuan of loans in April, a sharp fall from 1.01 trillion yuan in March and far below market expectations.

This story showed on the chinadaily.com.cn website early yesterday morning...and I thank Hong Kong reader Graham C. for sending it along. The link is here.

Spot gold rallied more than 2 percent on Thursday for its largest one-day gain since late January, as technical buy signals and new signs of a sluggish U.S. economy more than offset deepening despair over the euro zone.

After flirting with a bear market on Wednesday, down more than 20 percent from its September record, bullion rallied early after Philadelphia Federal Reserve data showed a contraction in factory activity in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region. The data rekindled some hope the Fed would plow more money into the system to stimulate the economy, traders said.

The dramatic $24 bolt higher started just before the release of the Philly Fed statement at 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) and continued for about 20 minutes, accompanied by a spike in volume.

This Reuters story was filed from New York yesterday...and was posted over at the finance.yahoo.com website. I thank reader Peter Handley for sending it...and the link is here.

As African governments seek to extract more revenue from their mining sectors, the continent's biggest economy has given gold producers a much-needed tax break that removes at least one head wind from a struggling industry.

Gold Fields, the world No. 4 bullion producer, on Thursday became the latest South African gold miner to report better-than-expected earnings partly on the back of the new, lower tax regime. It benefited to the tune of close to 1 billion rand ($120.46 million) from the change in the first quarter.

The companies' gain will cause some shareholder pain as the burden has been partly sifted to dividends, but analysts generally agree that the Treasury's revenue stream from the gold sector will be less as a result.

This Reuters story was filed from Johannesburg yesterday...and I plucked it from a GATA release late last night. The link is here.

The first is with Peter Schiff...and it's headlined "The Market Rollover, QE3 Bottom & Gold". The next blog is with Citibank analyst, Tom Fitzpatrick. It bears the title "Despite Pullback, Gold to Hit New All-Time Highs". And lastly is this commentary with Mike Roth who, according to Eric King, is the "Number 1 oil analyst in the world." It's headlined "Fears of '08 Credit Metldown Impacting Markets".

One of gold’s greatest powers is that it is a unit of account which cannot be fudged nearly as easily as the fiat all-you-can-print buffet.

But gold is still gold. It’s still that same shining yellow metal that investors have for thousands of years held up as a unit of account and store of value, and a medium of exchange.

Central bankers can’t just abolish history. On the other hand, history may very well abolish the central bankers and their fiat currencies.

I've never heard of the author...John Azia of Azizonomics...however his short commentary, with some really incredible graphs, was posted over at the zerohedge.com website yesterday...and is a must read. I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending it to me...and the link is here.

In his presentation at the New York Hard Assets Conference, market analyst and mining company consultant Peter Grandich says gold will never find respect from the financial and news media establishment even though its performance over the last decade far exceeds any other asset class. He maintains that gold's bull market is far from over. Grandich's presentation is 14 minutes long.

This is another item that I pulled from a GATA release last night...and the link to the youtube.com video is here.

In an essay posted Thursday at GoldSeek, financial writer Doug Casey of Casey Research asks for evidence of gold market manipulation and some explanation of its purpose.

GATA's secretary treasurer Chris Powell picked up that torch...and provided the link not only to Doug's commentary, but to all the evidence that GATA and its consultants have gathered since he and Bill Murphy founded the organization back in 1999.

There's lots to read in the links provided...and its up to each individual reader/investor to weight the evidence presented to them by all parties...not just here in my daily blog, but everywhere they roam on the Internet. As you can tell, there are dissenting voices everywhere and, for the moment, Freedom of Speech is still legal in North America.

Most people that are familiar with this issue have pretty much chosen sides already. I made up my mind long before I ever heard of GATA...or Casey Research...when I read the essay "The Golden Pyramid" by John Hathaway that my friend/full-service broker gave me more than ten years ago. Hathaway knew that something was amiss in the gold market even back then...and it still is. Nothing that I've read or heard since has changed my mind. On the contrary, with the evidence that has been brought to light since, my opinion is more strongly held than ever.

But it's a free country on both sides of the 49th parallel for the moment...and most everywhere else on Planet Earth as well...and everyone is entitled to their opinion, whatever it may be. In the future...and probably in the not-to-distant future...the matter will be settled in both gold and silver. Then Doug and I can compare notes over a glass of Torrontés.

I thank reader Howard Brown for being the first one through the door with Doug's commentary. The link to it...and all the evidence gathered...is posted in this GATA release linked here.