too? It was a choice. Not every bank did it. Those that took the biggest risks were large mortgage originators and the most aggressively expansive commercial banks—Citigroup, Bank of America and Washington Mutual—and the two smallest and scrappiest investment banks—Lehman and Bear Stearns. By contrast, J.P. Morgan began throttling back its mortgage pipeline already in 2006 and bought as much protection as it could in the CDS market. Goldman Sachs went beyond hedging to place a large bet on an imminent housing market collapse.45
