NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 7,600 Bear Stearns Cos' (BSC.N) employees, about 55 percent of its staff, are expected to lose their jobs as the troubled investment bank is absorbed into JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), JPMorgan Chief Executive James Dimon said Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) could cut as many as 4,000 of its own employees worldwide as the bank prepares to take on staff from Bear Stearns Cos (BSC.N) at the same time it deals with turmoil in financial markets, people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chairman and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Monday told bank investors that while the current credit market crunch may soon be over, the U.S. economy could still face a deep and extended recession.

They will continue to seek damages, arguing that the securities firm should be valued at more than $10 a share, a lawyer says. Investors in Bear Stearns Cos. dropped their request for a court order that would stop a proposed buyout by JPMorgan Chase & Co., less than two days before a scheduled hearing in the case.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Cos Inc (BSC.N) shareholders suing over the planned JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N) takeover are dropping efforts to block the deal but will seek damages of at least $2.8 billion, an attorney for the plaintiffs said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks vaulted higher on Wednesday after Intel Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and other blue chips reported earnings that reassured investors worried that a weak economy would sap corporate profits.

NEW YORK -- Wall Street rallied Wednesday after better-than-expected quarterly results from JPMorgan Chase and two other Dow Jones industrials raised investors' hopes that companies and the economy are indeed recovering from the protracted global credit crisis. The Dow rose more than 250 points as investors shrugged off any concerns about oil passing $115 a barrel for the first time.

NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., which recently scooped up the toppling investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., said Wednesday that problems with mortgages and other loans cut its own first-quarter profit in half.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) posted first-quarter results that soothed investors who had counted on the giant banks to handle the U.S. housing and credit crises better than many rivals.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), said on Wednesday quarterly profit fell 50 percent, but the third-largest U.S. bank was able to skirt the massive losses that have crippled many rivals, and its shares rose as much as 5 percent.