JP Morgan Chase Earnings
Grim This Year: BusinessWeek

From Reuters
Thursday, March 17, 2005

http://www.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?
duid=mtfh11030_2005-03-18_01-07-31_n17188921_newsml

NEW YORK -- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s 2005 earnings will be "much worse" than the $3.06 a share that Wall Street expects the No. 2 U.S. bank to report, BusinessWeek reported on Thursday.

Rising legal costs -- including those stemming from the company's $2 billion settlement announced on Wednesday over a WorldCom-related lawsuit -- and rising merger costs are part of the reason, BusinessWeek said.

Annual cost savings are also only expected to hit only 70 percent of a $3 billion target by the end of the year, the magazine said.

But Chief Operating Officer Jamie Dimon, in an interview with BusinessWeek, did promise the bank would be in a "fabulous position" by 2006, after putting an ambitious growth plan into place.

A J.P. Morgan spokesman declined to comment on the report.