By: Ken Chase.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of banking giant JPMorgan Chase, offered his latest assessment of the U.S. economy this week, as part of the company’s most recent quarterly release. While he acknowledged that the current trends include a seemingly healthy jobs market and strong consumer spending, he also listed a series of warning signs that echoed his June prediction that an economic “hurricane” was on the horizon.
Dimon’s latest warning cited troubling signs that include “geopolitical tension, high inflation, waning consumer confidence, the uncertainty about how high rates have to go and the never-before-seen quantitative tightening and their effects on global liquidity, combined with the war in Ukraine and its harmful effect on global energy and food prices.”
According to the JPMorgan head, any or all of these factors are “very likely” to have a negative impact on the world’s economy at some point in the future. Dimon’s company has suspended stock buybacks for now, and previous reporting revealed that the firm has been setting funds aside to ensure that it can manage any loan losses.
Many analysts have grown increasingly apprehensive about the possibility for a recession in the U.S. as the Atlanta Federal Reserve has been tracking negative growth throughout much of the second quarter. That worrisome news comes on the heels of the reported decline in first quarter growth. Two consecutive quarters of negative growth has historically signaled that the economy is in or approaching a recession.
In a Thursday conference call, Dimon was asked to update his June “hurricane” forecast in light of recent data. He responded by suggesting that his earlier assessment has not changed, and that he was already seeing the first manifestation of some of the negative financial consequences that he had feared when he made that prediction.
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