(Yahoo! Finance) - JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that the financial world looks a lot like the heyday in the years ahead of the global financial crisis.
“Unfortunately, we did see this in '05, '06, '07, almost the same thing," Dimon said at the firm's annual investor day in New York on Monday. "The rising tide lifting all boats, everyone was making a lot of money, people leveraging to the hilt. The sky was the limit.”
“My own view is people are getting a little comfortable that this is real — these high asset prices and high volumes and that we won't have any kind of problem whatsoever. So we're quite cautious about that,” Dimon added.
Dimon’s comments come amid a turbulent market period, as investors have dumped stocks across a range of industries over fears that artificial intelligence will disrupt their core businesses. In the financial industry, these challenges have been most acutely felt in private credit markets.
“All of our main competitors are back,” said Dimon, who on Monday wore a cast on one hand after recently having surgery to treat arthritis. “It's good for the world, et cetera. I don't know how long it's going to be great for everybody. I see a couple of people doing some dumb things,” he added.
For years, Dimon has consistently warned about high asset prices, though his worries don’t always come to fruition. Last fall, his credit market views caused a stir when he likened a string of bad loans at his and other banks to cockroaches.
"I shouldn't say this, but when you see one cockroach, there's probably more," Dimon said on the firm's earnings call in October. "Everyone should be forewarned on this one."
Last year, Wall Street banks had one of their best years ever. So did their bosses, including Dimon.
Dealmaking rebounded, and the Trump administration pushed to loosen financial services regulation.
JPMorgan stock fell late last year when it raised its 2026 expense expectations by $9 billion; the company said Monday it plans to allocate $19.8 billion of its yearly spending to technology. It also shared projections on Monday for net interest income to rise to $104.5 billion this year, $1.5 billion more than it projected last month.
As for how long Dimon plans to remain as boss of the nation's largest bank, his answers remained largely consistent with previous comments, saying Monday that he would stay as CEO for "a few years," without sharing further details.
Asked about JPMorgan’s own competitive positioning in an environment of rapid AI advancements, Dimon and his top lieutenants rattled off the reasons why the nation’s biggest bank is more likely to be a winner than a victim.
“In my view, we will be a winner,” Dimon said, adding that the company doesn’t have to place No. 1 in all areas of financial markets it plays in. “We've always had the strategy to use technology to do a better job for our customers. And we're quite good at it.”
By David Hollerith - Senior Reporter
