JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) the NY City banking giant will be cutting 9,200 jobs at Washington Mutual (WaMu) (OTC:WAMUQ) the announcement was made on Monday several months after they acquired the failed loans and saving bank.

Due to bad mortgage debts, WaMu the Seattle-based bank collapsed, resulting in the biggest bank failure in American history, JPMorgan Chase brought the troubled bank in September.

The job cuts at WaMu, once the largest loans and savings in the country, accounts for 20 percent of Washington Mutual’s 42,000 staff according to reports from JPMorgan Chase at the end of the third quarter.

The company also announced last week 1,600 job losses in San Francisco and Pleasanton, Christine Holevaz, Spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase said that 3,400 WaMu staff in Seattle will also be losing their jobs.

Holevas added that most of the redundancies are at corporate level resulting in most branch employees keeping their jobs, the remaining 4,200 WaMu staff cuts will be made from offices nationwide.

Source: moneycnn

Washington Mutual (WaMu) became the next big bank to be bailed out by the federal government on Thursday, WaMu is now considered as the biggest US bank failure in history.

WaMu whose venture into subprime mortgages led to the federal regulators seizing the company on Thursday after $1.9 billion of deposits and banking assets were brought by JPMorgan Chase. The falling house prices and Collapse of the mortgage market has kept WaMu struggling over the last year leaving investors anxious about the future of the bank.

WaMu’s was left holding billions of dubious loans, added to last week’s financial crisis in Wall Street the bank rapidly deteriorated loosing $16.7 billion between Sept. 15 and this past Wednesday. Finally JPMorgan Chase took over $134.7 billion in deposits from WaMu, previously $181.9 billion was held by WaMu.

No immediate action will be taken with WaMu’s 43,200 staff, although it is said that JPMorgan will take drastic measures to reduce its employees.

Read the full article in seattletimes

Canadian banks may be able to delve deep into their pockets and seize the opportunity to buy a list of US banks, Washington Mutual Inc being one of them.

As rumours that Washington Mutual (WaMu) wouldn’t be able to find a buyer immersed yesterday the banks share price took a sudden nose dive, Seattle-based WaMu put itself up for sale last week, one of the potential buyers named yesterday by the US news reports said that Toronto-Dominion Bank could be potential buyer.

It’s likely that once the US bank valuations have been demoted to the bargain basement there will be a lot of window shopping from the Canadian banks looking for a bargain and we assume that would include Toronto-Dominion Bank.

This could be a great chance for the Canadian banks to buy cheaply a string of US retail banking franchises.

Read the full article in the globeandmail

We have no hard evidence that Washington Mutual (WaMu) is about to file for bankruptcy or fail, but what is as crystal clear is that when the markets are in such disorder every bank has its moment in the spotlight, and as WaMu as one of the only Wall Street banks left standing alone it is one of the top attractions.

With WaMu the problem lies with its share price, with the ever decreasing real estate prices WaMu need to raise more and more capital, so with a stock price that keeps decreasing the chances that the bank will find itself in trouble will go up.

It appears now that the government is now looking for a buyer for the bank, and WaMu seems to be obliging. In a recent report a Merrill Lynch analyst says WaMu are open to a merger with another bank, Morgan Stanley have been mentioned in several reports but nothing has been confirmed, the only other independent bank left standing would be Goldman Sachs so I don’t think they will be ruled out for a WaMu merger.

Read the full article in fool.com

Washington Mutual (WaMu) managed on Tuesday to calm investors on a day which has been chaotic in the financial markets, WaMu’s tattered share price was given a lift, and the share price jumped 18.0 percent or 36 cents to $2.36 in the morning trading on Tuesday.

This came after WaMu announced that the reason Standard & Poors downgraded WaMu’s credit rating to junk territory on Monday; the rating service cited the thrift’s exposure to the mortgage securities market, downgrading it to BB-minus from BBB-minus. Yet, the Standard & Poors did say the thrift has enough cash to get through 2010. S&P’s change in rating shadowed that of fellow rating service Moody’s who rated WaMu last week.

It’s been hinted that JPMorgan could still be interested in the stock spiking. The last few days have been erratic for Washington Mutual losing half of its value in the last week, and with Wall Street collapses around it WaMu is having it’s biggest challenge yet.

Read the full article in forbes

The nation’s biggest saving and loan company Washington Mutual Inc., had another day of speculation after a very unstable week for shares, and WaMu is not in the forefront of takeover rumours.

Long term Chief Executive Kerry Killinger, was fired in Monday by the WaMu’s board, this came after pressure from the regulators. Last year WaMu stock was $45, However, Friday the stock closed at $2.73, which is down a further 36% from the week previous.

Throughout last week, rumours scattered the mortgage industry, one was Citigroup Inc. would step in to buy the thrift; another said Seattle-based WaMu would cease all home lending next week. It was also reported that JP Morgan Chase & Co was in talks to buy WaMu.

Back in early 2007 WaMu was the sixth in line for the Number one spot as subprime lender, fighting for the spot from Countrywide Financial Corp. Now that the Bank of America Corp swallowed up Countrywide, and Uncle Sam runs IndyMac, But Killinger’s is not exactly kicking like it used to but its big thrift is still alive.

Read full article at LAtimes

Washington Mutual’s badly timed venture into the subprime has left the bank in a seriously bad way, with shares prices falling, not surprising when we see that Washington Mutual (WaMu) had $3.33 billion loss and a supernova of loan loss provisions to nearly $6 billion, net charge-offs came in at more than 3.5 percent, these figures added to the percentage of non-performing loans making up 3.62 percent of total assets, it’s very clear that WaMu are walking a thin dangerous line.

Wa Mu held more than $60 billion in home equity loans and lines of credit in the last quarter, these stand behind secured mortgages that are not looking to good either.

You have to feel for Alan Fishman he had only been in his new position as the CEO of WaMu for three days when the shares tanked 60 percent. So what are the options for WaMu and how can Fishman aid the troubled bank, it doesn’t mean its all over for them, look at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, they have managed to keep going even if at the expense of the share holders.

Find out what the guys over at Motley Fool have to say and read the full article.