Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 17, 2024.
Adam Galicia | CNBC
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday called the U.S. stock market bloated and said he feels more cautious than others in the business world because of risks from deficit spending, inflation and geopolitical upheaval.
“Asset prices are sort of inflated by any measure. They’re in the top 10 or 15 percent” of historical valuations, Dimon told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in Swiss.
Dimon said he was talking specifically about the U.S. stock market, which is in the midst of a multi-year bull run. The S&P 500 has recorded consecutive annual gains of more than 20% in 2023 and 2024, the first time this has happened in more than 25 years. Last year, Dimon even called his own company’s shares expensive.
But Dimon also noted that parts of the bond market, like sovereign debt, are “at unprecedented levels.”
“So yes, they are high, and you need pretty good results to justify those prices,” Dimon said. “Having growth-friendly strategies helps achieve this, but there are negative aspects, and they can tend to surprise you. »
Dimon, 68, is one of the most respected voices in the financial world after building JPMorgan into the largest U.S. bank by many measures, including assets and stock market valuation.
He has been calling for caution since 2022, when he said a “hurricane” was heading toward the U.S. economy. That storm has not yet arrived, however, as the United States has outperformed expectations in recent years and the election of Donald Trump in November has renewed hopes for a pro-growth administration.
“I’m a little more cautious on a number of things,” Dimon said Wednesday. “What I’m a little cautious about is the budget deficit; it’s a global problem, not just an American problem,” he said. “And the related (question): ‘Will inflation go away?’ I’m not so sure.”
Rising global conflicts, including the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East and growing threats from China, “make me very concerned about how this will affect our world over the next 100 years,” he said. Dimon said.
In this wide-ranging interview, Dimon expressed support for tariffs on imports to the United States if they enhance national security, and said he and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk had ironed out a previously contentious relationship . Dimon also said he has no plans to run for office in 2028.
