JPMorgan Chase & Co. is close to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that would end one probe into how the company's Bear Stearns Cos. unit packaged and sold home loans to investors, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A pact with the nation's largest bank by assets would be the first tangible victory in a wide-ranging SEC investigation into Wall Street's sale of mortgage-backed securities before the onset of the financial crisis. JPMorgan's payment is not expected to exceed the $550 million paid in 2010 by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to settle claims by the SEC that it misled investors in a collateralized debt obligation called Abacus 2007-AC1.
