It looks like their losses for JP Morgan’s bad day at the casino might increasing.

In any case, it’s bad enough that they are dropping a stock buyback,:

The crisis at JP Morgan escalated yesterday as it emerged its trading losses in London could rise to as much as $7bn (£4.5bn) and the US bank cancelled a share buyback. Fears were growing that the losses could spiral from an initial $2bn, which was declared on 10 May, as JP Morgan struggles to unwind the massive bets made by the so-called “London Whale” trader Bruno Iksil.

In a further blow, chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon has suspended plans to use the US bank’s own funds to buy back $15bn worth of shares. Buybacks are a popular way for firms to use up cash sitting on the balance sheet and prop up the share price.

I’m inclined to believe that the losses are going to get a lot worse.

Stock buybacks are all about management making sure that shareholders won’t feel inclined to try to fire them.

They are bailing out the boat, and they decided that they needed to toss out the life-jackets to lighten the load.

Not good.