Nothing Gained at Fleet and J.P. Morgan Venture Units

Venture capital investing was the problem child of bank earnings Wednesday, but that didn't keep J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM Quote) and FleetBoston (FBF Quote) from acting like devoted parents.

Now investors and analysts are wondering how many more quarters of trouble there will be before the business starts to behave.

Both banks sought to downplay the weakness, describing it as temporary, but experts were skeptical. "Is the worst behind us?" asked UBS Warburg banks analyst Michael Plodwick, noting Fleet's venture capital performance, where weakness cut earnings by about $290 million, or 27 cents a share.

Plodwick says despite Fleet's having taken a "kitchen sink" approach to the principal investing portfolio this quarter, his expectations for the business are "a very modest rebound off depressed levels" in the early part of 2002. (His firm hasn't done recent underwriting for FleetBoston.) ...