Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, expressed hope that the economy will improve and unemployment will ease in the second half of the year after hitting levels near the Great Depression era in the second quarter, according to CNBC.
“I give it some pretty good odds,” Dimon told a virtual financial services conference about the New York-based bank’s valuation, CNBC reported. “The government has been very responsive, the Federal Reserve has been very responsive. Large companies have a huge wherewithal, hopefully we’ll keep the small ones alive long enough that most of them get back into business.”
Dimon said J.P. Morgan was prepared for a more protracted decline caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the network reported.
He praised the Federal Reserve, noting the central bank’s actions to bolster financial markets were like “water that fills every crevice.”
“I do think that that liquidity lifts up, it’s almost impossible to measure, the stock market and all asset prices,” he said, CNBC reported.
Dimon did not ignore what analysts and experts have said could be a prolonged decline spurred by COVID-19. But he noted the move to reopen portions of the economy would prove fruitful.
“You could see a fairly rapid recovery,” he said, according to CNBC. “I think that’s got a good chance.”
His comments came following a question about potential reopening scenarios for the U.S. economy and the 500,000 shares of J.P. Morgan Dimon bought in 2016 for $26 million. Cumulatively, Dimon now owns more than 6.7 million shares of the stock at a value of $357 million.
“I’m not trying to predict the bottom,” Dimon said on the call, CNBC reported. “You cannot be a bank and be immune to what goes on in the world out there.”
J.P. Morgan shares surged 7.1 percent to $95.82 at the close of the market, according to Yahoo Finance.
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