Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase & Company may have been hit by a loss of USD 250 million this quarter due to bad bets on coal prices.

The firm may have employed an arbitrage trading strategy linked to the differences in coal prices between northwest Europe and South Africa.

The paper said that the impact of the trading loss would be minimal for JPMorgan but would provide ammunition to people who advocate the curbing of such proprietary trading by deposit-taking banks.

Ms Kristin Lemkau spokeswoman of JPMorgan said that the story wasn't accurate, adding there would be no further comment, while the bank outlet in London also said they don't comment on trading positions taken by the company.

She said that what could result from the alleged losses would be the way politicians may use it to try to shut down proprietary trading at the financial institutions.

The question is whether or not the story was correct, but just too exuberant in its losses reported on for the company. Maybe it was huge losses but just not to the level mentioned. Even if the numbers were correct, it wouldn't have much impact on the bottom line of the company, as shown by the market shrugging off the news as pretty much irrelevant.

(Sourced from Reuters)