Stocks fall after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warns of recession
New York
CNN Business
—
So much for a sleepy Columbus Day on Wall Street. Stocks didn’t do much on Monday morning, but took a nasty – if brief – decline in the afternoon after strong comments from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who warned that the US is likely to enter a recession in the next six to nine the months.
Dimon made the comments in an exclusive interview with CNBC that aired Monday.
“You can’t talk about the economy without talking about things in the future … and these are serious things,” Dimon said in the CNBC interview. He added that he believes Europe is already in recession and the US is likely to be next.
The Dow fell more than 200 points by midday, or about 1%, shortly after Dimon’s comments were posted before recovering slightly. The Dow was flat in late afternoon trading.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 1.2% and 1.6% respectively by mid-day as well, but also recovered. The S&P 500 fell 0.3% while the Nasdaq was down 0.5% with a little more than two hours to go before the closing bell.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), one of the 30 stocks in the Dow, fell nearly 1.5%. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is one of several major banks that will report earnings on Friday.
Stocks have fallen this year on worries about inflation and how the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes to combat rising prices could eventually lead to a recession. Shares rose early last week, leading to hopes that the market had bottomed out.
But sellers have returned with a vengeance in recent days. Friday’s largely solid jobs report did little to dispel fears of more big rate hikes from the Fed.
The Nasdaq hit a new 52-week low on Monday. The Dow and S&P 500 are also not far from the lowest. The Dow is down about 20% this year and is back in a bear market along with the other two major market indexes.
The bond market was closed on Monday, but yields on the benchmark 10-year government bond are currently around 3.89%. The 10-year yield, which largely influences the direction of mortgage rates, briefly topped 4% late last month, reaching its highest level since October 2008.
Fed Deputy Chair Lael Brainard alluded to challenges in the housing market in a speech on Monday. Brainard noted that “the moderation in demand due to monetary tightening is only partially realized so far” and that “the transmission of tighter policy is most evident in highly interest-sensitive sectors such as housing.”
Brainard also warned that “in other sectors, delays in transmission mean that policy actions to date will have their full effect on activity in coming quarters.” In other words, the rest of the economy may soon slow down.
