Seems like even JPM can’t escape bad news as the firm just admitted a huge $2.3 billion trading loss, caused (ironically) by a failed attempt to hedge its risk. This latest news just affirms in my mind the inevitable demise of large investment banks in the trading landscape. With the advent of better technology and high frequency trading, smaller players are finding more opportunities in the market and are able to move faster than their larger competitors to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities (re: the hedge funds that gained on JPM’s loss). This is not to say that S&T will die out completing at large institutions, but I think that we’ll definitely see a downsizing of these areas within the large investment banks as we move forward. Of course, this latest debacle just adds more fuel to the fire of many pundits and supporters of the Volcker Rule, which is just poor timing and bad luck for big banks, to say the least.