Dimon Says He's Skeptical Inflation Will Return to Fed's 2% Target

By Hannah Levitt

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he’s skeptical that inflation will return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, citing risks including deficit spending and “remilitarization of the world.” 
 

There’s still a lot of economic uncertainty tied to factors including geopolitics and quantitative tightening, Dimon said Wednesday in a CNBC interview from Kansas City. The central bank will probably cut rates soon, he added, but “I don’t think it matters as much as other people think.” 

Dimon has been warning for more than a year that inflation may be stickier than investors expect, and wrote in his annual letter to shareholders in April that JPMorgan is prepared for interest rates ranging from 2% to 8% “or even more.” He said last month that “there has been some progress bringing inflation down, but there are still multiple inflationary forces in front of us.” 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that the central bank could cut rates as soon as September, citing risks of a weakening labor market. Such concerns were underscored Friday when the July jobs data showed slower hiring and an unexpected climb in the unemployment rate. 

Dimon wrote in The Washington Post last week that the next US president should give the private sector “a seat at the table.” He didn’t name, let alone endorse, any candidate and declined to do so Wednesday. He also declined to say whether he’d consider serving in a cabinet position for the next administration, instead responding, “I love what I do.” 

Dimon, 68, has run JPMorgan for more than 18 years, and questions around how much longer he’ll do so have lingered over Wall Street. He long joked that his retirement was five years away, no matter when asked, but told shareholders in May that the timetable is not five years anymore. 

“Eventually I have to leave, I know that,” Dimon said Wednesday. “I might be chairman for a year or two. I have a while to go before I’m out of the company.”