Tuesday, July 8, 2008

First Buy Bear Stearns, THEN do Charlie Rose

The uber quotable J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon got the Charlie Rose treatment last night. It is one thing to read it in the pages of the Wall Street Journal a few days before (the interview obviously being taped) but another to watch it on Rose's show. You can see a clip here that the Rose program evidently posted on YouTube. Dimon is waxing Bear Stearns and it is helpful to hear a CEO walk through the reasoning for buying the wayward company. What you miss in this limited clip is 1) Dimon calling for a full SEC investigation of the rumor mill that he thinks ultimately killed Bear Sterans by guaranteeing a run on the bank; and 2) his embrace of more regulation for the industry in the wake of the credit crisis. Most notably he didn't say what type of legislation - which is the real debate.

Why do you care? You care because listening to his decision making explanation gives you a sense of how and why Wall Street acts.