this is from ed steer of casey research, who looks at the derivatives report issued by the occ. as expected, jp morgan is the chief culprit:

Today I'm going to spend some time on the latest derivatives report [Q4/08] issued late last week by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [OCC]. Five U.S. banks, hold 96% of all U.S. bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default. The five are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives. Morgan Chase is followed by Bank of America with $38 trillion in derivatives, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs with a ‘mere’ $30 trillion in derivatives. Number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain’s HSBC Bank USA has $3.7 trillion. Below is a table of numbers [courtesy of lemetropolecafé.com] that includes the derivatives holdings of the top 25 U.S. banks.

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The same report [Page 30, Table 9...pdf link below] shows that U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase holds $82.4 billion in gold derivatives...77.1% of the entire U.S. banking system total. HSBC USA carries $19.2 billion in gold derivatives...18.0% of the entire U.S. banking system total. Citibank has an inconsequential 4.4%. The Bank of America has the other 0.5%. And in silver...the numbers are an even bigger surprise. JPMorgan holds about $3.5 billion in silver derivatives...46.3% of the U.S. banking system total...and HSBC USA holds around $3.9 billion in silver derivatives...52.2% of the U.S. banking system total. Bank of America and Citibank hold $500 million in silver derivatives between them. No other U.S. bank has any gold or silver derivatives at all...zero, none, nada, zip, zilch, squat!!! Any questions? JPMorgan is the custodian of the silver ETF...SLV; and HSCBC USA is the custodian of the ETF...GLD. The link to the lastest [and all prior] quarterly reports of the OCC is here. Ted Butler's must read essay on this issue is featured below.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/display...