JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during the 2025 IIF Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, DC, October 16, 2025.
Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday he is concerned about the U.S. economy, citing soaring asset prices and a competitive environment in the banking industry reminiscent of before the 2008 financial crisis.
While economists tout that the Trump administration’s tax and deregulation policies will boost economic growth this year, Dimon said he tends to think about what happens when expectations rise.
“My own view is that people are getting a little bit more comfortable that this is the reality, these high asset prices, these high trading volumes, that nothing is going to go wrong,” said Mr. Dimon, dressed in black and wearing a brace on one hand.
Mr. Dimon said the economic cycle will inevitably change, and a wave of borrower defaults will have a broader impact on lenders, and will also impact the industry in ways that many did not expect.
“There’s going to be a cycle at some point…I don’t know what the confluence of events is going to cause that cycle to occur, and that’s what worries me the most,” Dimon said. “I’m not comforted by the fact that asset prices are high. In fact, I think it increases the risk.”
While concerns about how Anthropic and OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models could disrupt myriad industries, particularly software companies, have roiled markets in recent weeks, the broader S&P 500 index is not far off its all-time high.
At the same time, concerns about lending to software companies coupled with concerns about AI have been plaguing private credit lenders since Blue Owl spooked markets last week by announcing it needed to sell assets to satisfy investors seeking to exit the fund.
The event sent shares of major alternative asset managers, including Apollo, KKR and Blackstone, into declines, leading some market participants to suspect the beginning of a broader downturn in confidence.
“There are always surprises in the credit cycle,” Dimon said. “We are often surprised by which industries are most affected,” he said. “In 2008, 2009, we couldn’t predict the utility companies and the phone companies, but this time, thanks to AI, it might be software.”
In response to a question from veteran banking analyst Mike Mayo, Dimon said he felt the current environment was similar to the three years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis in that “everyone was making a lot of money, people were leveraging, and the sky was the limit.”
The head of JPMorgan said some financial companies are currently doing “stupid things” such as taking advantage of the interest income earned through loans and investment activities, without naming them.
“It feels stupid to be so great when everyone is making money…it feels really good,” Dimon said.
“And when I think about all the factors that are going on, I take a deep breath and say, ‘Be careful,'” Dimon added.
This story is developing. Please check back for the latest information.
