“JPMorgan Chase said Friday it has agreed to pay $4.5 billion in a settlement with a group of investors to resolve claims on bundled pools of home loans that have soured.

“It was the latest attempt by the beleaguered bank to move beyond a mountain of litigation stemming from the housing crisis. JPMorgan is hammering out a separate $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department that would dispose of multiple government probes into its sale of bad mortgage securities.

“Friday’s deal involves investments sold between 2005 and 2008 by JPMorgan and Bear Stearns, the failed investment bank that JPMorgan purchased five years ago.

“The firms, like many on Wall Street, bundled hundreds of home loans into securities and marketed them as investments that could be traded like stocks. When millions of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages and the housing market collapsed, the value of the securities took a nose dive and investors were saddled with huge losses.”

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