The SEC said J.P. Morgan Securities will pay $153.6 million to settle charges that the firm misled investors in a mortgage-backed securities transaction "just as the housing market was starting to plummet."

In shades of the SEC lawsuit last year against Goldman Sachs, the SEC in a news release said J.P. Morgan set up a $1.1 billion collateralized debt obligation without properly telling investors that a hedge fund helped select assets packed into the CDO, and had bet against more than half those assets.

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