DON’T LOOK NOW, BUT THE NEW STEVE JOBS IS JAMIE DIMON

If you’d told me that on the sell-side, JPMorgan Chase is more popular among analysts than Apple is, I’d have told you you’re out of your mind. I’d have been wrong:

The two companies are among 15 in the Standard & Poor’s 1500 Composite where “buy” recommendations made up 85 percent of analyst ratings and there were no “sells,” data compiled by Bloomberg Rankings as of Oct. 24 show. Stocks with fewer than 15 analysts covering them were excluded. For JPMorgan, the total was 89.5 percent, compared with 87.5 percent at Apple.

I say it’s because bank analysts, who’ve spent the past three years trying to find reasons to not answer their phones, have to recommend something. That 89.5% of course does not bode well for performance-minded Morgan shareholders in the intermediate term. . . .