Jpmc & Bear Stearns (a)

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“The Tip of the Iceberg; JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns (A)” 1. Consider a traditional commercial bank. What would each side of its balance sheet have looked like? The financial statements used by banks are extremely different from the final statements you would normally see being used by most companies. When examining the balance sheet of a typical company you would see categories such as inventory, accounts payable, or accounts receivable, in a commercial bank balance sheet under assets you would find areas like loans and investments, and under liabilities you would find categories such as deposits and borrowings. This is a large factor in which separates the final statements of commercial banks and the final statements of your everyday company. Commercial banks accept various types of deposits from their clients; they then provide those funds to borrowers such as homeowners and small businesses, in which they can receive interest on these loans. They gain profit from the difference between the rate they pay for funds and the rate that they receive from the borrowers. The goal of the bank is to create a flow of funds so from the many deposits, the bank can lend out to a wide variety of borrowers and this creates the flow of funds, which is crucial in the banking system. In order for the bank to generate a profit they need their money to be put to work through earning interest. Therefore when it comes to the assets of the bank, cash plays a very minimal role because the banks main interest is earning assets so it keeps its money in loans and investments. Loans represent the majority of a bank’s assets. A bank can normally earn a higher interest rate on loans than on securities, roughly 6%-8%. Loans, however, come with a risk. If the bank makes bad loans to consumers or businesses, the bank will take a hit if those loans are not repaid. Since we have
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