JPM's Dimon Gives the Straight Talk on Mortgages

The public conference call to discuss quarterly earnings is a good way for investors (and anyone else) to gage the character of a company's CEO. Angelo Mozilo, the former Countrywide chief, mastered these calls and despite what you may think of him, his bluntness shined through. A close second in bluntness is JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon who laid it on the line Thursday morning when he unequivocally stated that he really has no idea where housing prices are headed but, in general, thinks they have further to fall. How much further? He couldn't say, really. (Dimon was discussing JPM's 2Q results.) But he did note that the mega bank is "extremely cautious" when it comes to residential finance. He did say one thing that caught my ear — that when it comes to investment banking "competition is back" which leads one to believe that perhaps the U.S. economy won't fall into a double-dip recession. Meanwhile, two months back we heard a rumor that Chase might be carefully and quietly inching its way back into wholesale residential lending. Dimon, as we all know, isn't a big fan of mortgage brokers. Of course, opinions can change…