JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon gestures as he speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Friday that he expects estimates for corporate earnings to fall amid the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s trade negotiations.
In a call with reporters to discuss first-quarter earnings, JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum said he didn’t see a reason to pull the bank’s guidance, which is contingent on how the economy and interest rates play out.
His boss, Dimon, then interjected, speaking about the broader corporate world: “I would just add companies, some have taken away their guidance. I expect to see more of that.”
“Analysts have generally reduced their S&P estimate earnings by 5%,” in recent days, Dimon said. “I think you’ll see that come down some more.”
Later Friday, Dimon specified that he expected analysts to slash their S&P 500 earnings estimates for growth of 5% to become flat and then as much as negative 5% “probably the next month.”
Companies will be reporting earnings over the next several weeks, giving managers an opportunity to update investors on their outlook during a period of heightened uncertainty. Markets have whipsawed since Trump announced a sweeping set of tariffs on America’s trading partners last week, and have remained volatile as U.S.-China tensions have escalated.
Already, companies with exposure to the consumer including Walmart, Delta and Frontier Airlines have reined in parts of their guidance to investors.
The uncertainty is causing clients to pull back from acquiring companies and making investments as they adopt a wait-and-see attitude, Dimon and Barnum said.
Anecdotal examples suggest that “people are being cautious,” Dimon said. “You know, people are pulling back on doing deals, not just big ones, but middle market companies are being very cautious about investment.”
Barnum added that the environment has led businesses to drop long term plans in favor of “near term optimization of supply chains.”
“This level of policy uncertainty is one that makes it hard to plan for the long term,” Barnum said.
Meanwhile, consumers have held up in the first quarter, and more recently there are signs they’ve been accelerating purchases on concerns that tariffs will make items more expensive, the CFO said.
