JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Thursday he thought the financial market was underestimating the possibility of US interest rates climbing higher, a prospect he described as a “cause for concern.”
The Federal Reserve last month voted unanimously to leave rates unchanged. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he expected “meaningful” inflation ahead as consumers pay more for goods due to the administration’s planned import tariffs.
President Trump has demanded immediate steep cuts, and called for Powell to resign.
Dimon said his view of the possibility of a further rate increase was “higher than anybody else.” “The market is pricing a 20% chance. I would price in a 40-50% chance,” the biggest US bank’s top boss told an event at Ireland’s foreign ministry.
“I would put that as a cause for concern.”
Dimon said his higher probability was based on price pressures, citing tariffs, the US government’s migration policies and its budget deficit as inflationary.
He added that the restructuring of global trade and global demographics were also “kind of inflationary.”
JPMorgan Chase has the largest market share of US consumer accounts and houses 11.3% of retail deposits.
Dimon described real-time data on the US economy as “totally impossible to read.”
The CEO, who has run the bank for 19 years and is one of the most prominent voices in corporate America, also said he thought there was complacency in the financial markets in the wake of Trump’s tariff policies and the global trade uncertainty.
“Unfortunately I think there is complacency in markets, and (they are) a little desensitized,” he said.
