J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was up with the rest of the banks at the open on Friday, but something happened along the way and the bank ended up being the only one of the thirty DJIA stocks down on the day.  Yep, the breadth of the DJIA was 29:1 on Friday and this was the sole loser of the lot.

The largest bank in America saw its stock close down $0.15 at $35.73 after the stock opened up almost a dollar higher at $36.70.  The intra-day high was ten cents higher at $36.80.  Cocktail napkin chartists would refer to this as a ‘gap & crap’ pattern.  That is exactly what it sounds like.  A big gap higher, almost no follow-on buying and a steady selling pattern the rest of the period.

Pegging an exact catalyst is not easy and we can throw it out there that perhaps it is ahead of the ex-dividend date or perhaps nothing more complicated than that Friday marks the quarter-end and maybe money managers do not want to have J.P. Morgan Chase on the books.  If it is that the London Whale losses are $9 billion or so, that has been out there.

Anyhow, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is the only one of the thirty DJIA stocks in the red when the DJIA closed up 277 points at 12,880 on the day.

Rival and fellow DJIA component Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) closed up $0.44 at $8.18.  If you want to know another bank suffering from its woes from the LIBOR scandal, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) closed down almost 5% at $10.30 in its ADR trading.

Update: Original story posted at 12:26 PM EST; story was updated to adjust for closing prices on Friday.

JON C. OGG

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