JPMorgan Chase released its third-quarter earnings report on Friday, and CEO Jamie Dimon issued a warning that global conflicts could further increase interest rates and national debt.
In a statement discussing the bank’s strong third-quarter earnings (a net income of $13.2 billion, up 35%), Dimon said: “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.”
Bloomberg/Getty | Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the JPMorgan Global China Summit in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
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Dimon warned that the ongoing Ukraine war and Hamas’s attack on Israel “may have far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade, and geopolitical relationships.”
He also said the growing national debt and “the largest peacetime fiscal deficits ever” may increase the country’s interest rates and inflation. However, the bank’s analysts say a recession may be avoidable.
JPMorgan economists say a “soft landing” – where the economy slows down and unemployment rises – is more likely than a recession due to the currently strong markets presented by the bank surpassing third-quarter expectations despite the economic uncertainty, per CNN.
Dimon, meanwhile, said he’s more worried about what’s happening around the world impacting things at home.
“I’m less concerned about the economic effect than obviously the geopolitical,” Dimon told CNN on Friday. “Currently, U.S. consumers and businesses generally remain healthy.”
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Following the news of Hamas’s attack on Israel, Dimon released an internal memo:
“The human cost of wars and terrorism [is] enormous, with too many lives lost and changed forever,” he wrote in the memo obtained by CNN. “We join together in our hope to one day see the end of violence and for there to be peace throughout the Middle East.”