JPMorgan’s Dimon warns on geopolitical risks

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.AP Images

The list goes on and on.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, took to the company’s earnings press release Friday to warn investors about the growing risk of economic and geopolitical uncertainties, ending the first part of his statement with a dire warning that’s rare from the everything-is-rosy corporate pronouncements.

“The U.S. and the global economy continue to show strength, despite increasing economic and geopolitical uncertainties,” he wrote, “which at some point in the future may have negative effects on the economy.”

The list of potential risks that Dimon rattled off to reporters on a media call could hardly be finished in one breath: “Brexit, Italy, trade, reversals of QE, Turkey, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, it’s an extensive list of stuff,” Dimon said. “Those things don’t derail a strong US economy but they are out there and eventually it may have an effect. No one should be surprised if it happens down the road.”

Dimon’s warning comes at the conclusion of a week when stock and bond markets fell the most in months, without any clear catalyst. Wall Street analysts could cite a whole host of reasons — much like Dimon did — for why the markets had fallen, but no one was sure. If nothing else, the concerns of the market and Dimon may have more to do with the lengthening of the list of worries than anything else.

Dimon said there was no tipping point that led to his warning, but that he wanted to make sure people were aware. 

“There’s always friction in the global economy, it just seems to be deteriorating a little bit,” Dimon said on the media call. “I’m just pointing it out. When you look at the whole landscape I wouldn’t ignore all that and the chance that one of those could go bad.” 

Dimon also said he didn’t think that communication between the business community and President Donald Trump had weakened in recent months.

“The business community has active and good dialogue across the whole administration,” said Dimon, who once chaired one of the president’s business roundtables. “I’ll give you one example, on trade the business community didn’t agree with the tactics, but we like the fact he did NAFTA, he’s talking to Europe and Japan, and it looks like he’ll start talking again to China.”