Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) are trading at their highest level since October 2008, hitting $50.19 earlier today. The stock, up 2.3% this week, is closing in on its 10-year high, $53.25, hit on May 31, 2007.
Citigroup (C), meanwhile, is up 2.1% today and at a 52-week high, though of course it’s well off its pre-crisis levels; the stock hit $44.75 today, somewhat lower than its December 2006 peak of $570.
Maybe the banks are being buoyed by Attorney General Eric Holder’s Senate testimony today, where he essentially conceded that some Wall Street firms are so big that they’re above the law:
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” he said. “And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”
He suggested that prior attempts to bring enforcement against banks may have been stifled by their outsize influence, saying it has an “inhibiting influence … on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate.”
Yowzers.
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