JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon also cited global uncertainty as his main concern and said it was one of the reasons why inflation would not go up. controlled, he said “geopolitics is getting worse.”
“My focus is on geopolitics, which can determine the economic situation,” Dimon said in an interview with CNBC TV18 at the JPMorgan conference in Mumbai, India.
Geopolitics is “getting worse, not better,” he added, pointing to recent attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on the Red Sea. “There are chances of accidents in the energy supply chain. God knows if other countries get involved. There are a lot of wars going on right now.”
The comments mark the third time in the past week that the head of America’s largest bank has expressed fresh doubts about the long-term path of the economy despite a new rate cut from the Federal Reserve designed to preventing a cooling labor market as inflation subsides.
On Friday, Dimon poured a lot of cold water on the idea that the US central bank might be reaching for an easy economy.
“I couldn’t count my eggs” about the result, he said at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, DC.
Last Tuesday, when he was asked at a Georgetown University event what he was concerned about in terms of financial markets, he said “the most important thing short of all other things, which is really important, is more important today than ever. [its] maybe since 1945, it is this war in Ukraine, what is happening in Israel [and] The Middle East, America’s relationship with China, and the legal base attack that was created after World War II.”
Dimon has long warned that the U.S. economy may be more vulnerable than some market watchers think, raising concerns about the potential level of inflation where inflation remains is high and some prices rise to 7% as the labor market weakens.
“I’m not sure if the world is ready for 7%,” he said at an event in India last year.
As recently as August, he said he was still “a little skeptical” that the inflation rate would return to the Fed’s 2% target. He added that the chances of a recession are now better than the chances of no recession.
Read more: Fed rate cut: What it means for bank accounts, CDs, loans and credit cards
Last Tuesday, Dimon acknowledged the need for the Fed to start lowering interest rates, but criticized the importance of the central bank’s first step, calling it “a small thing.”
The coming rate cut, however, will have an impact on the bank.
That was made clear earlier this month when JPMorgan COO Daniel Pinto warned that the consensus view among analysts that the bank could achieve a profit of $91.5 billion by 2025 was “very unrealistic” because of the impact of falling prices.
While acknowledging that the bank’s budget estimates for next year are not yet finalized, Pinto said JPMorgan was guiding costs to rise due to inflation and other investments, while its main driver of profit, interest rate, looks low due to fall. fees.
Interest income measures the difference between what banks earn on their assets (loans and securities) and what they pay out on their deposits.
JPMorgan’s stock has fallen every day since 2020 after Pinto’s comments.
On Tuesday in India, Dimon argued that he is optimistic in the long term, but “in the short term, I doubt more than other people that everything will be fine.”
He warned about the long-term path of inflation and even more than the outbreak of many conflicts and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
He cited demographic changes, global trade, and military retrenchment, as well as the shift to a green economy and the medium-term effects of artificial intelligence as possible contributors.
He also cast some doubt on the lingering effects of the US economic data announcements which have become very important for traders’ expectations about the Fed’s next move on interest rates.
“Below this rate, there is a real economy. No one knows what the real economy will do next year. No one,” he said Tuesday.
“We hope that we will continue to show growth with inflation. I have a little doubt about that, but it is happening,” he admitted.
“Markets set prices for things that will be good. Put me on the cautious side of that,” he added.
Regarding politics, Dimon said he is not endorsing a political candidate running for president, and he is not “expecting to be secretary of the Treasury.”
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other financial areas.
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