JPMorgan reportedly made $5 billion in derivatives profit

In one of the worst years on Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase reaped $5 billion through trading over-the-counter derivatives, sources said. Led by Matt Zames, the JPMorgan trading desk might have benefited from Lehman Bros.' collapse and the takeover of Bear Stearns, because the developments left hedge funds and companies with fewer derivatives-trading partners. "It's a flight to quality," said Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the University of Houston. "They expanded the scale of business, the number of trades people wanted to do with them, and it gave them pricing power."