JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay $153.6 million to settle civil fraud charges that it misled buyers of complex mortgage investments just as the housing market was collapsing.

J.P. Morgan Securities, a division of the powerful Wall Street bank, failed to inform investors that a hedge fund helped select the investment portfolio and then bet that it would fail, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. Among the investors who lost money on the deal were autoworkers for General Motors, a Lutheran financial organization in Minneapolis, and a retirement services company in Topeka, Kan.

The settlement announced Tuesday is one of the most significant legal actions targeting Wall Street's role in the 2008 financial crisis. It comes a year after Goldman Sachs & Co. paid $550 million to settle similar charges.

Still, the settlement amounts to less than 1 percent of the bank's 2010 net income of $17.4 billion -- which is less than what JP Morgan earns in one week.

In its announcement, the SEC said it had also charged Edward Steffelin with misleading investors. Steffelin headed the team at GSCP, an investment firm that was supposed to have been selecting the portfolio of mortgage securities in the $1.1 billion deal.

The SEC alleged that Steffelin knew that hedge fund Magnetar Capital was directly involved in choosing the securities and that he was seeking a job with Magnetar at the time. Steffelin has not reached a settlement with regulators.