Financial companies continued their wave of bad news with announcements of further write-downs and disappointing quarterly results.

In a regulatory filing late yesterday, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it will write down the value of mortgage-backed assets by at least $1.5 billion this quarter, after trading conditions ‘have substantially deteriorated” since July and spreads on mortgage-backed securities and loans “sharply widened,” Bloomberg reported.

Financial firms have reported more than $492 billion in losses and write-downs on debt securities since the subprime-mortgage market collapse last year.

Meanwhile, UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, reported a net loss of 358 million Swiss francs ($331 million) in the second quarter and $5.1 billion in additional write-downs on bad assets. This compared with a net profit of 5.5 billion francs a year earlier, the Associated Press reported.

The bank said it has lost market share as a result of its performance as some customers have pulled out funds. It cut 2,387 jobs in the quarter, mostly in the investment-banking sector. The company has proposed four new board members as part of a plan to strengthen oversight of management.

Wachovia Corp. said yesterday that its second-quarter loss was greater than previously announced. Reuters reported that the company lost $9.11 billion in the quarter rather than $8.86 billion as first reported. The increase is in part due to an added $500 million to its legal reserves to cover a possible settlement related to a regulatory probe of auction-rate securities sales. Citigroup Inc. and UBS settled last week.

The fourth-largest U.S. bank also said it would cut 6,950 jobs, 600 more than it originally disclosed, which will mostly be in its mortgage operations. The cuts will affect about 5.8 percent of Wachovia’s total work force. The company also is eliminating 4,400 open positions.