Original Article: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/dimon-says-fintech-and-big-tech-are-here-as-banks-lose-ground
Jamie Dimon said he’s optimistic the pandemic will end with a U.S. economic rebound that could last at least two years.
“I have little doubt that with excess savings, new stimulus savings, huge deficit spending, more QE, a new potential infrastructure bill, a successful vaccine and euphoria around the end of the pandemic, the U.S. economy will likely boom,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said Wednesday in his annual letter to shareholders. “This boom could easily run into 2023.”
Unprecedented federal rescue programs have blunted unemployment and averted further economic deterioration, according to Dimon, who said banks entered the crisis strong and able to help communities weather the storm. While lenders also benefited from U.S. stimulus, they built up buffers against future loan losses and performed well in stress tests, he said.
Dimon also pointed to U.S. consumers, who used stimulus checks to reduce debt to the lowest level in 40 years and stashed them in savings, giving them — like corporations — an “extraordinary” amount of spending power once lockdowns end. The latest round of quantitative easing measures will have created more than $3 trillion in deposits at U.S. banks, a portion of which can be lent out, he said.
It could all add up to a Goldilocks moment, according to Dimon, where growth is fast and sustained while inflation ticks up gently. Threats to that outcome include virus variants and a rapid or sustained jump in inflation that prompts rates to rise sooner.