JPMorgan Chase & Co. Reiterates Buy Rating for KAR Auction Services (KAR)

KAR Auction Services (NYSE:KAR)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by research analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a research report issued on Friday, American Banking News.com reports. They currently have a $34.00 price objective on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 19.93% from the company’s current price.

A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on KAR. Analysts at BB&T Corp. raised their price target on shares of KAR Auction Services to $33.00 in a research note to investors on Friday. They now have a “buy” rating on the stock. Separately, analysts at Zacks upgraded shares of KAR Auction Services from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note to investors on Wednesday. They now have a $30.80 price target on the stock. Read more.

Dimon’s Vacation Comes Up in New ‘London Whale’ Documents

The day before The Wall Street Journal published a story describing the outsized bets taken by a J.P. Morgan ChaseJPM +4.47% & Co. trader nicknamed “the London whale,” one of J.P. Morgan CEO James Dimon’s top lieutenants told him via e-mail that she wanted to “go over all the technicals” with him but “understood you were on vacation.”

The April 5, 2012 exchange between Mr. Dimon and Ina Drew, the executive in charge of the bank’s Chief Investment Office at the time, is a new detail about J.P. Morgan’s handling of the episode that emerged Friday as the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released more than 2,500 pages of documents it collected as part of an investigation into the trades. Read more.

JPMorgan Banker Backed $200 Million Madoff Loan in 2008

A former JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) banker who managed Bernard Madoff’s account said the con man was on track to receive a $200 million loan less than a month before his arrest if the request hadn’t been dropped.

Daniel Bonventre, one of five ex-Madoff employees on trial for allegedly aiding the fraud, asked JPMorgan in November 2008 to borrow twice Madoff’s credit limit of $100 million, with U.S. Treasuries as collateral, Mark Doctoroff, who left the bank last year, testified yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.

“They are doing well financially,” Doctoroff said of Madoff’s securities firm in an e-mail to JPMorgan’s credit department on Nov. 17, 2008. “They are looking at the current market as an opportunity to make investments and financial advice, true to their value investing style.” Read more.