Jamie Dimon says the next financial crisis will not come from JPMorgan's traders
Jamie Dimon is CEO of JPMorgan. He is also the chief doomsayer for the next financial crisis. Speaking today at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference, Dimon made his standard set of ominous predictions, but he added that regulators are looking for problems in the wrong places.
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Next time there's a crisis, it will be worse than people expect, said Dimon. It won't be "systemic," but it will be bad. No one is considering what would happen if interest rates are 300 basis points higher or credit spreads are 300 basis points wider, said Dimon. "When credit losses happen, they will be much worse than people think," he suggested.
However, Dimon said these bigger losses won't be an issue for JPMorgan's trading floor. JPMorgan has $80bn of market risk capital and on an average day, he said it generates $150m-$200m in revenues. In the past 10 years, Dimon said the bank has lost money on only 30 days. In its worst quarter ever at JPMorgan, the trading operation lost 'only' $1.7bn.
The trading business is therefore not the monster regulators think it is. When there's a crisis, Dimon said it's typically the result of liquidity. Regulators need to be looking at how banks use the discount window, he added.
Risk Magazine observed last week that war-induced volatility in the first quarter led banks to breach their value at risk limits. JPMorgan reported six backtesting exceptions in Q1 2026, up from four in Q1 2025.
Dimon reported that the second quarter has been strong for JPMorgan's traders, with trading revenues expected to rise by 10% while banking revenues rise 11%. This will be the second best quarter ever for JPMorgan's trading business, but equity capital markets (ECM) revenues in particular are also going to be "huge" this year, said Dimon. However, ECM is like an accordion, he said: "It opens and closes and it could close tomorrow."
These are exuberant times, said Dimon. "Right now it's good. But it was in '72 '86, 2000, 2007," he observed, "That doesn't give me comfort."
The JPMorgan CEO also said he thought JPMorgan stock is overpriced, along with most other assets.
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