JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a July 20 episode of the Master Investor Podcast that he would not personally buy the broad U.S. stock market at current levels and would also stay away from long-term government bonds. His core argument centered on three areas he believes markets have not fully priced: geopolitics, fiscal deficits, and the way returns from AI investment may unfold over time.
The interview was hosted by Wilfred Frost. In the version compiled by TechFlow, Dimon repeatedly returned to the same point: the issue is not whether one stock or another looks expensive, but whether investors have really accounted for what happens if major macro risks move from possibility to reality.
Record profit did not change his focus on risk
Frost opened by noting that JPMorgan had just reported its highest quarterly profit on record, $21.2 billion, up 41% from a year earlier. Dimon said the current setup is close to the best environment banks can have: high trading volumes, high asset prices, and a lot of activity. He added that conditions like that can last for a while, but they do not last forever.
He said JPMorgan is not built around the assumption that favorable conditions will continue indefinitely. The bank serves clients and keeps investing through strong markets and weak ones alike. Dimon also said the firm’s best year was not the year it made the most money. In his view, 2008 was its best year, even though return on tangible common equity was only 7%, because the bank outperformed everyone else on a relative basis.
When asked whether tail risks now look higher than in most of his two decades leading the bank, excluding 2008 and COVID, Dimon said he does not know what probabilities the market has already priced in. Some things may be reflected in prices. What is not priced in, he said, is what comes next if those risks actually materialize.
Geopolitics: the market may not be pricing the aftermath
Dimon listed a broad set of issues he said remain on his risk sheet: the war in Ukraine, terrorism in the Middle East, Iran, large global deficits, global re-militarization, and U.S.-China relations.
Those developments may or may not trigger larger problems, he said, and he hopes they are resolved well. Even so, he added that the risks may be much bigger than many people think. In his framing, markets may have priced some probability of trouble, but not the consequences if events actually break in a more serious way.
Oil resilience and the “straw that breaks the camel’s back”
Frost pointed to earlier comments from Dimon that the global economy had handled oil shocks tied to Iran better than many expected. Dimon said that resilience did not simply come from inventories. Looking back, he said, the world lost 20 million barrels a day, China cut 5 million barrels, strategic reserves were released, the U.S. also released reserves, and another 5 million barrels were rerouted to the other side of the Red Sea. The adjustment, he said, was remarkable and not something people had predicted in advance.
But oil is only one part of the picture. The war in Ukraine continues, trade negotiations are still under way, and large deficits remain in place. He said he does not know when or how those issues could cause problems, but he would not remove them from the list.
His baseline view is that the global economy is more diversified than it used to be and therefore more resilient, with much lower dependence on energy than in earlier decades. That does not mean there is no tipping point. In history, he said, turning points usually come when several events converge. It may take more straws to break the camel’s back now, and the renewed fighting may still not be enough by itself.
Iran is not just an economic question, he said
Asked whether the U.S. economy could handle a military campaign against Iran lasting several months, Dimon said it is important to separate what is truly important from what is merely economic. He acknowledged that higher oil prices and rising unemployment would be unwelcome, but said those outcomes are not the only things policymakers should weigh.
He referenced Winston Churchill holding out against Hitler for 18 months, saying that from a purely economic standpoint it may not have been sustainable, but it still had to be done. On Iran, Dimon said it is wrong to pretend the country is not a major threat to the world. He added that Iran has been killing people for 47 years and said it cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
He argued that the U.S. president should go to the public and say the matter is important and needs to be addressed. That does not necessarily mean sending 100,000 young Americans into combat, he said, but it does require a strategy focused mainly on economic pressure until Iran changes course. That process could take a year and oil prices could rise, but he said that outcome would still be preferable to facing an Iran with nuclear weapons a decade from now.
Fiscal deficits will become a problem, and he would not buy long bonds
Dimon was equally direct on public finances. Global debt is around 100% of GDP, he said, with deficits around 5% to 6%, even though the economy is actually doing fairly well. Numbers like that are usually associated with deep recessions or war. For that reason, he said, this will eventually become a problem.
He said the better outcome would be for policymakers to sit down and address it in a mature way. He pointed to past efforts by Paul Ryan and President Barack Obama to form a group, acknowledge the issue, and work through solutions.
If that does not happen, he said, the adjustment will show up through higher rates and market volatility. He also invoked the idea of “bond vigilantes,” saying investors will demand higher returns to compensate for fiscal risk.
When Frost asked him directly whether he would buy long-term Treasuries today, Dimon said he would not. He said recent inflation data may have looked good, but he would not put too much weight on them. He cited Kevin Warsh, saying markets should look carefully at how the numbers are calculated, what they respond to, and how they should be interpreted.
Even if inflation falls back to 2%, Dimon said, the 10-year Treasury yield should still be around 4% to 4.5%, with short rates at roughly 3.25% to 3.5%. In his view, markets are already close to those levels. So even if one believes inflation can get back to 2%, he said, it is hard to see much upside in long bonds. He also noted that inflation has been above 3% for five straight years.
He tied that judgment to economic history, saying he cannot forget what followed the 1974 recession. Deficits were lower then, the Vietnam War was over, and yet rates still climbed from 3.5% to 5%, 7%, 9%, and 11%. Oil shocks and stronger unions mattered, he said, but inflation did not simply disappear.
AI will change the world, but returns may not arrive on the market’s schedule
Dimon was not dismissive about AI. Quite the opposite. He said the technology is real and could help cure cancer, extend children’s lives to 100, reduce many diseases, produce new drugs, cut hospital misdiagnoses, and lower the number of car accidents. In his view, that makes AI a major positive for humanity.
He also said the technology has downsides, much as aviation and pharmaceuticals did in their early stages, and that governments have a duty to regulate it so society gets the best outcomes rather than the worst ones.
On jobs, Dimon said the concern is legitimate but should not become panic. He put the number of open AI and cybersecurity positions at 8 million and said the technology is currently creating more jobs than it destroys. The bigger issue, in his view, is retraining people fast enough so they can move into new roles, including well-paid technical trades.
His main warning was about return on investment. “When I look at AI itself, the amount of money being spent is enormous,” he said. “Will there be returns overall? Probably, just like the internet. Will they come in the way and on the timeline you expect? Absolutely not.”
He used the early internet as the comparison. Yahoo and Netscape disappeared, he said, while Google and Facebook rose later. The internet created immense value, but many of the earliest players were not the ultimate winners.
He said companies will become much more disciplined in how they spend AI budgets, asking what exactly a $10 million outlay produces. He also said firms are already finding cheaper ways to use models, including code that routes queries to the fastest and least expensive model available rather than the one a developer simply prefers.
On the S&P 500, individual stocks, and SpaceX
Frost asked whether the broader market is priced for a perfect outcome and whether Dimon would buy the S&P 500 at these levels. Dimon said it may not be priced for perfection, but it could be priced for a good outcome. Profits are rising, and growth can absorb valuation to some extent. If the economy turns down, though, the picture changes.
He said he approaches investing one stock at a time and is not an index buyer. Asked whether he had bought any stocks recently, he said no. If someone brought him a very attractive individual opportunity, he would look at it. But at the current level of the broad market, he would not buy.
Frost also asked about SpaceX, saying Dimon had been involved in a number of IPO-related discussions around the company. Dimon said price is not about whether he personally likes it or not. Thousands of very smart people work through valuation, and the goal is to find a clearing price.
He called SpaceX an extraordinary company and said he had visited it. He also described Starlink as an extraordinary product. On space-based data centers, he said the idea may be real because of very cheap energy, very cheap cooling, and stable conditions without vibration from Earth. The technical problem is how to send the data back, he said, and SpaceX uses lasers, switching to another satellite when weather becomes an issue.
Dimon added that Starlink now has 10,000 satellites in orbit and that the next-generation V3 system will have 100,000. If you have used Starlink V2, he said, especially in parts of rural Britain with no other connection, you know how good it is.
In 2008, he said, JPMorgan never had a zeroing-out risk
Frost brought up a previous comment from former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who said Goldman had a 15% to 20% chance of failing in 2008, and asked whether JPMorgan ever faced a similar risk. Dimon answered with one word: no. The probability was zero, he said.
He said JPMorgan had far more capital and liquidity than most firms in the market. When he arrived at JPMorgan in 2004, he saw leverage ratios across many companies climb sharply over the prior seven years and thought they were too high. The bank had been stress testing continuously, he said.
Dimon agreed with Blankfein on one principle: firms have to be prepared to survive. He said he always asks what the worst case is, how bad it could get, whether each business line could withstand it, and then whether the firm as a whole could survive if all of those bad outcomes happened at once. That almost never happens, he said, but the exercise still matters.
The “sinking feeling” of signing Bear Stearns
When Frost asked what it felt like to sign the deal for Bear Stearns, Dimon said JPMorgan had done extensive due diligence, reviewing every asset, every loan, every trade, the systems, litigation, and personnel records. The price carried an enormous margin of safety, he said: Bear’s book value was $12 billion, JPMorgan bought it for $1 billion, wrote it all down, and had a management team in place the next day.
But when the board had voted, the papers were put in front of him, and it was time to sign, the reality landed. He knew he was committing the company, and not just himself but what was then 150,000 employees, to 12 months of very hard and unpleasant work. Shareholders would feel pressure, and the political consequences would cut both ways. In his words, your stomach drops. It is a lonely moment.
Bureaucracy, complacency, and arrogance
Managing 320,000 employees means fighting bureaucracy all the time, Dimon said. He called bureaucracy, complacency, and their cousin arrogance a danger to any company, not just a large one. Even a great restaurant has to get food and service right every night.
He said the answer is relentless honesty in self-assessment: look at products and services, read customer complaints, visit call centers, and talk directly to frontline staff. He described the bank’s bus tours and road visits as listening exercises rather than public appearances. Tellers and branch managers get on the bus, get a beer, and get permission to speak freely. Sometimes they ask him, “Jamie, do you really want to do it this way?” and that is when he knows a product has a problem.
“Customer complaints are a gift,” he said. The first question should not be whether the customer is right. The first task is to find the part the customer may be right about, because there is usually some truth in it worth acting on.
He added that he has seen managers grow visibly uncomfortable when lower-level staff are allowed to report how bad things really are. To him, that says something important about whether the manager is suited to the job.
Character matters, and insecure CEOs distort information
Frost noted that Dimon has often said character matters most. Dimon replied that he did not learn it directly from J.P. Morgan, but many people reach the same conclusion. One simple test, he said, is whether you would want your own children reporting to that person, and whether you would want to report to them yourself.
He said he restored the J.P. Morgan line “character matters” and made it a core principle. Banking, in his view, depends on that judgment because the business is about partnership, not simply buying a piece of steel. You need to know how a person behaves in hard times, what kind of person they are, and how they treat employees. Those things do not show up on a credit form, but they are a form of credit.
On why insecure CEOs often become inflated, Dimon cited a line from Goldman’s John Weinberger: some people grow when they get a big job, while others swell. As executives move up, he said, they understand less and less of what comes across their desk in direct technical terms. That gap can create insecurity.
Secure leaders trust people, admit what they do not know, stay curious, and ask others to explain again so they can help. Insecure leaders surround themselves with friends, ask for prettier PowerPoint decks, and stop bad news from reaching the top. Once that starts, real information about the business, including customer satisfaction and complaint rates, begins to disappear.
New York, London, and bank taxes
Dimon said he does not see commitment to New York as a simple either-or decision against other places, but he pointed to a clear shift inside the firm. JPMorgan’s headcount in New York has fallen from 35,000 twenty years ago to 26,000, while its Texas workforce has risen from 11,000 to 35,000.
Where it makes sense to do business and where people want to live comes down to a mix of taxes, healthcare, commuting, and housing, he said. Cities compete with one another, which means mayors have to think about those factors.
The discussion then turned to the UK bank surcharge, which has fallen from 8% to 3%. Asked what would happen if it went up again, and whether JPMorgan would still build its new Canary Wharf tower, Dimon said he has long thought the tax was wrong. JPMorgan did not damage the UK, he said. The bank hires there, trains there, hires veterans, and provides healthcare to all employees.
He said the tax has now been collected for 17 years from a company that had nothing to do with the crisis, costing shareholders $5 billion. “Tax the banks” may sound appealing, he said, but it has negative consequences. If a government chooses that path, there may be nothing he can do in the short run, but in the long run it leads to decisions policymakers may not like.
He also said Rachel Reeves has done a good job and that he hopes London remains JPMorgan’s home for the long term. His advice to government was to build a competitive and consistent tax structure that supports capital formation. He pointed to the number of companies leaving the London market and said that, if he were in charge, he would not want to see that trend continue.
Succession, survival, and career advice
On succession, Frost asked whether Troy or Doug had clearly emerged as the next possible CEO and whether Jen was still in the picture. Dimon said Troy and Doug are obviously in positions where they could be successors, but there could be others. Jen, he said, has made clear that it is not her preference. He added that one irony of the top job is that the closer people get to it, the less they want it.
Frost also asked about March 5, 2020, when Dimon suffered an acute aortic dissection and nearly did not come off the operating table. Dimon said the earlier throat cancer had actually been harder on him because radiation and chemotherapy had drained him so thoroughly. With the aortic dissection, he knew exactly what it meant: many people never make it to the hospital, and others do not make it out of the emergency room.
He said he understood in that moment that it could be goodbye. At the same time, he felt he did not have many regrets. He would leave behind good children, a good wife, and a good company, and he had done his best. He had made mistakes, he said, but was fortunate enough to come through it.
At the close of the interview, Dimon gave a simple answer when asked for his most important career advice: learn. In his view, there are only two ways to do that. Read, and read a lot. Read conservatives and liberals. Read George Will and Tom Friedman. Do not lock yourself inside an information cocoon. History matters because it shows how people make mistakes in good times and how they endure bad times.
The other way is to learn from people, especially people who are smarter than you in ways that are different from your own. Ask them about their past, he said, and if they trust you, they will open up. He also stressed emotional intelligence: whether you have empathy, whether you can tell when someone is having a bad day. His final advice was practical and personal. Take care of your mind, body, soul, friends, and family. And if you say you do not have time for your children while still finding time for two rounds of golf and three games over a weekend, he said, stop playing golf and do something with your kids instead.