Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon: I don't know when, but there will be a recession one day
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on potential competition from Amazon, the outlook for Federal Reserve policy, concerns over ...
About Jamie Dimon
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has been a prominent voice at recent economic forums. In May 2026, speaking at the Reagan National Economic Forum, Dimon described the U.S. economy as “pretty good,” citing 2% growth and low unemployment, while noting that inflation was “ticking up.” He characterized the stock market as “exuberant,” adding that while corporate earnings were strong, there was “hype” in some areas and that low credit spreads represented a risk. Dimon repeatedly warned of “tectonic plate” geopolitical shifts, including the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Iran, remilitarization, and trade restructuring, which he said “dwarf the short-term economy.” He expressed a wish for more U.S. support for Ukraine and said he hoped the Iran war would “settle properly for us.” Dimon also focused on domestic policy, advocating for what he called “good policy” over tax increases or new spending, and arguing that fixing regulation could boost growth by 1%. He discussed a meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, saying he had “said everything I wanted to say” and noted that mayors can fail if “ideology blinds them.” Dimon announced JPMorgan’s “American Dream Initiative,” which includes targets for mortgages, affordable housing, small-business banking, and financial education. On technology, he praised SpaceX as “extraordinary” and acknowledged that AI will create and replace jobs, but argued the U.S
Transcript (20 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:01
Japan did well, Nikkei average up almost 1%. We are kicking off this hour with part two of my exclusive interview with J.P. Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon. We weighed in on rising competition from Amazon, especially after the recent Wall Street Journal article calling him and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos frenemies.
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Jamie Dimon0:24
We are friends. I have enormous respect and trust in Jeff. They do what they want to. Just competing — great competition all the time. It could be anyone out there: tech companies, foreign companies. In my shoes, you have to assume they are coming, assume they are good. You've got to have people work hard so we can win in the marketplace. I am not going to win by being scared. I win by working hard and doing the things that we need to do. So they are already some people in there. They have Amazon, pay people, a lot of different things working on. Our job is to do the best we can. Remember, we will win. We collaborate and compete with anybody out there.
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Interviewer1:03
Has the competitive landscape gotten tougher? China here, technology here, China getting market share. Smaller banks trying to get market share, better regulatory environment than larger banks.
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Jamie Dimon1:15
We support. We are one of the biggest banks. Small banks, community banks, one hundred percent supportive. I hope it works. I hope they do things that we can't. So the competitive environment has gotten tougher, but I think it is good. This is remember: you want competition. You want innovation, you want growth. It's kind of almost like normalized. Competing again is good for a while. Some people wouldn't touch financial services. People had to make up for mistakes in the past. The playing field is taking off. You should not get too much from that. The normal state of affairs is tough competition.
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Interviewer1:57
The Federal Reserve is trying to normalize interest rates, raising from the rock-bottom levels we were at. Is the Fed doing the right thing in your view? How many Fed hikes do you think we should see in the year ahead? How many might we see?
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Jamie Dimon2:09
Yeah, I remember years ago we had the Fed didn't forecast and all that type of thing. Paul Volcker raised effectively 200 basis points on Sunday. The Fed has to be data dependent. That is interest rates and maybe how they manage the balance sheet a little bit. They are very bright people. I have enormous respect for Chairman Powell. The situation, they adjust accordingly. My own view is if we had good growth, rates normalizing, normalized would be 3% on the short end, maybe 4% on the ten year. That is a good thing. Obviously from that, growing rapidly, raising rates is not as bad as inflation. The judgment calls they have to make: when should they do it? The American public is far better off with having good growth and rates going up a little bit than not good growth and rates not going up.
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Interviewer2:58
Yeah, but the problem is the Fed is doing it two-pronged. They are raising rates on one hand, then unwinding this enormous balance sheet. Remember when the balance sheet was 750 billion dollars, they took it up to 4.5 trillion dollars. It was good for banks and the economy when they were adding all this stimulus. It's got to be bad taking it away, no?
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Jamie Dimon3:17
A better way to look at it: we don't know exactly what it did. So we know, you can hypothesize it raised prices, financial prices probably did. The best maybe it raised the 10-year rate by 1%, stock price a little bit. You are correct, we don't know exactly what it did, so it's hard to know exactly the reverse. But remember, the Fed doesn't have to do everything. They can stop, they can change their mind. They have a lot of tools at their disposal. I am not worried. I am confident of navigating this change to what I call a more normal environment. That normal environment in my view is not for being in rates. Simply telling the world we will always be data dependent, doing a lot of different things, and react to that.
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Interviewer3:58
What does this environment feel like to you? You have seen cycles. I remember back in '90, the Fed raised twice, 50 basis points, 75 basis points in one shot. Then that year, I believe it was '94, '95, the market soared. So how do you compare this period we are in right now?
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Jamie Dimon4:18
People sometimes just worry too much. Like all these years we've had normal growth in the American economy. We have lived through tough times. I go back to the '74 recession, '82 recession. Then things that looked dramatic weren't bad: the '87 market crash, the internet bubble didn't destroy the American economy. It caused a huge something like that. But I think there is more. We are just slowing down a little bit. A lot of concerns out there: geopolitical issues, about sentiment from global synchronized growth to maybe bad, maybe go into recession. It doesn't look to me like that is taking place. I think it's just a slowdown. You had good jobs data recently. So data comes out around the world in January, February, not so bad. People may take a breath, a deep breath, markets open up. There will be a recession one day. So people say, is there going to be a real estate recession? I can't, I don't know when there will be one. Something will trigger it, a bit different than the last one.
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Interviewer5:16
You don't think markets are indicating a recession on the horizon over the near term then?
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Jamie Dimon5:20
No, I think markets are overreacting to short-term sentiment around a bunch of complex issues.
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Interviewer5:27
Slight change in money supply.
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Jamie Dimon5:29
Some is a rational response. Prices are 18 P/E, now 16, because you think slow growth, higher chance of recession, trade war. That is a rational adjustment. We shouldn't say it's irrational. That is probably pretty rational. Under that environment, because you think it feels very different than it was. You know better than I do. When I think about things, the Federal Reserve makes a pivot, says no rush. Earnings have been pretty strong. We just had great jobs numbers Friday: 312,000 jobs created. Better after three months. It seems we could be poised for a rip-roaring rally.
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Interviewer6:07
That is why people overreact. I don't know about a rip-roaring rally.
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Jamie Dimon6:11
But I think sufficient growth in 2019 in America. Therefore sentiment may reverse course a little bit down the road. I hate guessing about the future. I run a business like serving you as a client, navigating the ups and downs of markets.
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Interviewer6:23
Just to be clear, when you look at what the police department in inversion, or when you look at the no high yield debt issuance, that is telling us something right now. It is not speculating.
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Jamie Dimon6:33
I think that is true. But again, I look at inversion a little bit because of QE. I wouldn't give it quite as high importance as I would before. We don't know the exact effect of QE. I still suspect somehow that the 10-year bond today should be 4%. I have been wrong about that. But when you have had 2% inflation, a normal 10-year bond rate is 4%. We don't have that. That may be not just U.S. QE, the Federal Reserve. You had QE around the world for a long time. The ECB was buying 100% of debt issuance in Europe for a couple of years. We have never seen something like that before. Maybe World War II we had some. We don't know exactly the reverse. I have faith that folks will navigate.
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Interviewer7:18
Which is my point: money supply is a very different situation than it was in the good old days. You sell money.
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Jamie Dimon7:26
Yes, right. Again, I heard this: regulatory policy, monetary policy are completely different than they were before. I don't fully understand the full effect. I do think that QE, a different regulatory environment, may have a different effect than we think.