today, which is amazing. quote, this portfolio has proven to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the firm previously believed. the portfolio in question, a portfolio of synthetic credit securities. i ll get to that in a moment. but this is bigger than jpmorgan. the wall street journal wrote about a secretive unit in jpmorgan that makes massive trades in things like synthetic credit securities and what are these? trades that bet on which way oil prices will go or interest rates or greek debt or anything like that. mortgages. remember that what caused? the star of the jpmorgan trading unit is a guy named bruno ixil. he s nicknamed the london whale because his influence on global markets is so massive. so if he gets a bet wrong, the whole bank could be at risk. yes. post the 2008 financial crisis when american taxpayers poured about $250 billion into our biggest banks to save them from bets on top of bets on top of bets. that s with things li