After Jaime Dimon
Wall Street is looking forward, a little uneasily.
The major indexes were mostly positive on Monday, all but the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing in the green.The Dow gave up the 40,000 level, brought lower mostly by JPMorgan Chase & Co. $JPM, which was down 4.46 percent, and Cisco Systems $CSCO, which shed 2.24 percent.
JPM and CSCO combined for about a 63-point intraday drag on the Dow.
Travelers $TRAV (down 1.86 percent), Home Depot $HD (1.82 percent), and McDonald’s $MCD (1.64 percent) also made notable subtractions.
JPM’s big move appears to be at least in part a reaction to Jaime Dimon’s comments about succession planning at the biggest of the big banks during an investor day Q-and-A session.
Calling back to his once-pat answer, Dimon said the forecast is “not five years anymore” for his anticipated tenure. That’s the long-term thing.
Dimon has been CEO of JPM since 2006, into and through both the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession as well as the COVID-19 pandemic panic and recovery.
He learned from people who held top slots at major financial corporations during the 1987 crash, the 1997 Asian crisis, and the dot-com implosion.
He’s seen a lot. Investors, traders, and speculators are trying to put a price on Dimon’s deep institutional memory and his experience of market history.
“We’re on the way, we’re moving people around,” Dimon said. He also said, “It’s up to the board – it’s not up to me.
“I have the energy that I’ve always had. That’s important. I think when I can’t put the jersey on and give it my fullest, I should leave, basically.”
JPM also boosted its guidance for full-year net interest income from $90 billion to $91 billion, citing fewer-than-expected rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
Price action yesterday and today is mostly about Wednesday, when we’ll see the minutes from the most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting and we’ll hear from Nvidia $NVDA about its fiscal 2025 first quarter.
