Investor Reports
Annual Report 2023
April 8, 2024
The strength of our company has allowed us to always be there for clients, governments and communities — in good times and in bad times — and this strength has enabled us to continually invest in building our business for the future.
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
Across the globe, 2023 was yet another year of significant challenges, from the terrible ongoing wars and violence in the Middle East and Ukraine to mounting terrorist activity and growing geopolitical tensions, importantly with China. Almost all nations felt the effects last year of global economic uncertainty, including higher energy and food prices, inflation rates and volatile markets. While all these events and associated instability have serious ramifications on our company, colleagues, clients and countries where we do business, their consequences on the world at large — with the extreme suffering of the Ukrainian people, escalating tragedy in the Middle East and the potential restructuring of the global order — are far more important.
As these events unfold, America’s global leadership role is being challenged outside by other nations and inside by our polarized electorate. We need to find ways to put aside our differences and work in partnership with other Western nations in the name of democracy. During this time of great crises, uniting to protect our essential freedoms, including free enterprise, is paramount. We should remember that America, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” still remains a shining beacon of hope to citizens around the world. JPMorgan Chase, a company that historically has worked across borders and boundaries, will do its part to ensure that the global economy is safe and secure.
In spite of the unsettling landscape, including last year’s regional bank turmoil, the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, with consumers still spending, and the markets currently expect a soft landing. It is important to note that the economy is being fueled by large amounts of government deficit spending and past stimulus. There is also a growing need for increased spending as we continue transitioning to a greener economy, restructuring global supply chains, boosting military expenditure and battling rising healthcare costs. This may lead to stickier inflation and higher rates than markets expect. Furthermore, there are downside risks to watch. Quantitative tightening is draining more than $900 billion in liquidity from the system annually — and we have never truly experienced the full effect of quantitative tightening on this scale. Plus the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to have the potential to disrupt energy and food markets, migration, and military and economic relationships, in addition to their dreadful human cost. These significant and somewhat unprecedented forces cause us to remain cautious.
2023 was another strong year for JPMorgan Chase, with our firm generating record revenue for the sixth consecutive year, as well as setting numerous records in each of our lines of business. We earned revenue in 2023 of $162.4 billion1 and net income of $49.6 billion, with return on tangible common equity (ROTCE) of 21%, reflecting strong underlying performance across our businesses. We also increased our quarterly common dividend of $1.00 per share to $1.05 per share in the third quarter of 2023 — and again to $1.15 per share in the first quarter of 2024 — while continuing to reinforce our fortress balance sheet. We grew market share in several of our businesses and continued to make significant investments in products, people and technology while exercising strict risk disciplines.
Throughout the year, we demonstrated the power of our investment philosophy and guiding principles, as well as the value of being there for clients — as we always are — in both good times and bad times. The result was continued growth broadly across the firm. We will highlight a few examples from 2023: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB) extended its #1 leadership positions and grew share year-over-year in retail deposits, credit card sales and credit card outstandings (adding close to 3.6 million net new customers to the franchise); the Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) maintained its #1 rank in both Investment Banking and Markets and gained more than 100 basis points of Investment Banking market share; Commercial Banking (CB) added over 5,000 new relationships (excluding First Republic Bank), roughly doubling the prior year’s achievement; and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) saw record client asset net inflows of $490 billion, over 20% higher than its prior record.
In 2023, we continued to play a forceful and essential role in advancing economic growth. In total, we extended credit and raised capital totaling $2.3 trillion for our consumer and institutional clients around the world. On a daily basis, we move nearly $10 trillion in over 120 currencies and more than 160 countries, as well as safeguard over $32 trillion in assets. By purchasing First Republic Bank, we brought much-needed stability to the U.S. banking system while allowing us to give a new, secure home to over half a million First Republic customers.
As always, we hold fast to our commitment to corporate responsibility, including helping to create a stronger, more inclusive economy — from supporting work skills training programs around the world to financing affordable housing and small businesses to making investments in cities like Detroit that show how business and government leaders can work together to solve problems.
We have achieved our decades-long consistency by adhering to our key principles and strategies (see sidebar on Steadfast Principles below), which allow us to drive good organic growth and promote proper management of our capital (including dividends and stock buybacks). The charts below show our performance results and illustrate how we have grown our franchises, how we compare with our competitors and how we look at our fortress balance sheet. Please peruse them and the CEO letters in this Annual Report, all of which provide specific details about our businesses and our plans for the future.
Looking back on the past two+ decades — starting from my time as Chairman and CEO of Bank One in 2000 — there is one common theme: our unwavering dedication to help clients, communities and countries throughout the world. It is clear that our financial discipline, constant investment in innovation and ongoing development of our people have enabled us to achieve this consistency and commitment. In addition, across the firm, we uphold certain steadfast tenets that are worth repeating.
First, our work has very real human impact. While JPMorgan Chase stock is owned by large institutions, pension plans, mutual funds and directly by single investors, in almost all cases the ultimate beneficiaries are individuals in our communities. More than 100 million people in the United States own stocks; many, in one way or another, own JPMorgan Chase stock. Frequently, these shareholders are veterans, teachers, police officers, firefighters, healthcare workers, retirees, or those saving for a home, education or retirement. Often, our employees also bank these shareholders, as well as their families and their companies. Your management team goes to work every day recognizing the enormous responsibility that we have to all of our shareholders.
Second, shareholder value can be built only if you maintain a healthy and vibrant company, which means doing a good job of taking care of your customers, employees and communities. Conversely, how can you have a healthy company if you neglect any of these stakeholders? As we have learned over the past few years, there are myriad ways an institution can demonstrate its compassion for its employees and its communities while still strengthening shareholder value.
Third, while we don’t run the company worrying about the stock price in the short run, in the long run we consider our stock price a measure of our progress over time. This progress is a function of continual investments in our people, systems and products, in good and bad times, to build our capabilities. These important investments will also drive our company’s future prospects and position it to grow and prosper for decades. Measured by stock performance, our progress is exceptional. For example, whether looking back 10 years or even farther to 2004, when the JPMorgan Chase/Bank One merger took place, we have outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Standard & Poor’s Financials Index.
Fourth, we are united behind basic principles and strategies (you can see the principles for How We Do Business on our website and our Purpose statement in my letter from last year) that have helped build this company and made it thrive. These allow us to maintain a fortress balance sheet, constantly invest and nurture talent, fully satisfy regulators, continually improve risk, governance and controls, and serve customers and clients while lifting up communities worldwide. This philosophy is embedded in our company culture and influences nearly every role in the firm.
Fifth, we strive to build enduring businesses, which rely on and benefit from one another, but we are not a conglomerate. This structure helps generate our superior returns. Nonetheless, despite our best efforts, the walls that protect this company are not particularly high — and we face extraordinary competition. I have written about this reality extensively in the past and cover it again in this letter. We recognize our strengths and vulnerabilities, and we play our hand as best we can.
Sixth, and this is the new one, we must be a source of strength, particularly in tough times, for our clients and the countries in which we operate. We must take seriously our role as one of the guardians of the world’s financial systems.
Seventh, we operate with a very important silent partner — the U.S. government — noting as my friend Warren Buffett points out that his company’s success is predicated upon the extraordinary conditions our country creates. He is right to say to his shareholders that when they see the American flag, they all should say thank you. We should, too. JPMorgan Chase is a healthy and thriving company, and we always want to give back and pay our fair share. We do pay our fair share — and we want it to be spent well and have the greatest impact. To give you an idea of where our taxes and fees go: In the last 10 years, we paid more than $46 billion in federal, state and local taxes in the United States and over $22 billion in taxes outside of the United States. Additionally, we paid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over $10 billion so that it has the resources to cover failure in the American banking sector. Our partner — the federal government — also imposes significant regulations upon us, and it is imperative that we meet all legal and regulatory requirements imposed on our company.
Eighth and finally, we know the foundation of our success rests with our people. They are the front line, both individually and as teams, serving our customers and communities, building the technology, making the strategic decisions, managing the risks, determining our investments and driving innovation. However you view the world — its complexity, risks and opportunities — a company’s prosperity requires a great team of people with guts, brains, integrity, enormous capabilities and high standards of professional excellence to ensure its ongoing success.
I remain proud of our company’s resiliency and of what our hundreds of thousands of employees around the world have achieved, collectively and individually. Throughout these challenging past few years, we have never stopped doing all the things we should be doing to serve our clients and our communities. As you know, we are champions of banking’s essential role in a community — its potential for bringing people together, for enabling companies and individuals to attain their goals, and for being a source of strength in difficult times. I often remind our employees that the work we do matters and has impact. United by our principles and purpose, we help people and institutions finance and achieve their aspirations, lifting up individuals, homeowners, small businesses, larger corporations, schools, hospitals, cities and countries in all regions of the world. What we have accomplished in the 20 years since the Bank One and JPMorgan Chase merger is evidence of the importance of our values.
By 2004, J.P. Morgan Chase already represented the consolidation of four of the 10 largest U.S. banks from 1990: The Chase Manhattan Corp., Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical Banking Corp. and, most recently, J.P. Morgan & Company. And some of their predecessor companies stretched back into the 1800s, one even into the late 1700s.
Bank One had been even busier on the acquisition front, especially across the United States. By 1998, then Banc One had more than 1,300 branches in 12 states when it announced a merger with First Chicago NBD, a Chicago-based bank created just three years earlier by the merger of First Chicago and Detroit-based NBD. Now headquartered in Chicago, the new Bank One became the largest bank in the Midwest, second largest among credit card companies and fourth largest in the United States. But the merger didn’t go as planned, with Bank One issuing three different earnings warnings. In March 2000, Bank One reached outside its executive ranks, and my tenure began as Chairman and CEO, working to overhaul the company and help bring it back to profitability and growth.
Fast forward to 2003, and another wave of consolidation was well underway in U.S. banking. Most of the nation’s larger banks were trying to position themselves to be an “endgame winner.” In the biggest deal, Bank of America agreed to buy FleetBoston Financial Corp. for more than $40 billion. Those two banks — already amalgamations of several predecessor companies — touted the breadth of their combined retail branch network.
But they were hardly alone. In 2003, some 215 deals were announced among U.S. commercial banks and bank holding companies for a total value of $66 billion, according to Thomson Financial, which tracks merger data.
In July 2004, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank One merged — as part of a 225-year journey — to form this exceptional company of ours: JPMorgan Chase. At its merger in 2004, the combined bank was the fourth largest bank in the world by market capitalization. But with patient groundwork over the years — fixing systems and upgrading technology, managing the notable acquisitions of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual (WaMu) and continuing to reinvest, including in our talent — we have made our company an endgame winner.
In earlier years, banks worried about their survival. While the past two decades have brought some virtually unprecedented challenges, including the great financial crisis and a pandemic followed by a global shutdown, they did not stop us from accomplishing extraordinary things. Our bank has now emerged as the #1 bank by market capitalization.
Each of our businesses is among the best in the world, with increased market share, strong financial results and an unwavering focus on serving our clients, communities and shareholders with distinction and dedication. The strengths that are embedded in JPMorgan Chase — the knowledge and cohesiveness of our people, our long-standing client relationships, our technology and product capabilities, our presence in more than 100 countries and our unquestionable fortress balance sheet — would be hard to replicate. Crucially, the strength of our company has allowed us to always be there for clients, governments and communities — in good times and in bad times — and this strength has enabled us to continually invest in building our businesses for the future.
You can see from the following charts what gains and improvements we have achieved along the way.
Within this letter, I discuss the following:
I. SUMMARY OF OUR 2023 RESULTS AND THE PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE US
II. UPDATE ON SPECIFIC ISSUES FACING OUR COMPANY
III. STAYING COMPETITIVE IN THE SHRINKING PUBLIC MARKETS
IV. MANAGEMENT LESSONS: THINKING, DECIDING AND TAKING ACTION — DELIBERATELY AND WITH HEART
V. A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR AMERICA AND THE FREE WESTERN WORLD: STRATEGY AND POLICY MATTER
Each year, I try to update you on some of the most important issues facing our company. First and foremost may well be the impact of artificial intelligence (AI).
While we do not know the full effect or the precise rate at which AI will change our business — or how it will affect society at large — we are completely convinced the consequences will be extraordinary and possibly as transformational as some of the major technological inventions of the past several hundred years: Think the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, computing and the Internet, among others.
Since the firm first started using AI over a decade ago, and its first mention in my 2017 letter to shareholders, we have grown our AI organization materially. It now includes more than 2,000 AI/machine learning (ML) experts and data scientists. We continue to attract some of the best and brightest in this space and have an exceptional firmwide AI/ML and Research department with deep expertise.
We have been actively using predictive AI and ML for years — and now have over 400 use cases in production in areas such as marketing, fraud and risk — and they are increasingly driving real business value across our businesses and functions. We're also exploring the potential that generative AI (GenAI) can unlock across a range of domains, most notably in software engineering, customer service and operations, as well as in general employee productivity. In the future, we envision GenAI helping us reimagine entire business workflows. We will continue to experiment with these AI and ML capabilities and implement solutions in a safe, responsible way.
While we are investing more money in our AI capabilities, many of these projects pay for themselves. Over time, we anticipate that our use of AI has the potential to augment virtually every job, as well as impact our workforce composition. It may reduce certain job categories or roles, but it may create others as well. As we have in the past, we will aggressively retrain and redeploy our talent to make sure we are taking care of our employees if they are affected by this trend.
Finally, as a global leader across businesses and regions, we have large amounts of extraordinarily rich data that, together with AI, can fuel better insights and help us improve how we manage risk and serve our customers. In addition to making sure our data is high quality and easily accessible, we need to complete the migration of our analytical data estate to the public cloud. These new data platforms offer high-performance compute power, which will unlock our ability to use our data in ways that are hard to contemplate today.
Elevating this new role to the Operating Committee level — reporting directly to Daniel Pinto and me — reflects how critical this function will be going forward and how seriously we expect AI to influence our business. This will embed data and analytics into our decision making at every level of the company. The primary focus is not just on the technical aspects of AI but also on how all management can — and should — use it. Each of our lines of business has corresponding data and analytics roles so we can share best practices, develop reusable solutions that solve multiple business problems, and continuously learn and improve as the future of AI unfolds.
We have a robust, well-established risk and control framework that helps us proactively stay in front of AI-related risks, particularly as the regulatory landscape evolves. And we will, of course, continue to work hard with our regulators, clients and subject matter experts to make sure we maintain the highest ethical standards and are transparent in how AI helps us make decisions; e.g., to counter bias among other things.
You may already be aware that there are bad actors using AI to try to infiltrate companies’ systems to steal money and intellectual property or simply to cause disruption and damage. For our part, we incorporate AI into our toolset to counter these threats and proactively detect and mitigate their efforts.
Getting our technology to the cloud — whether the public cloud or the private cloud — is essential to fully maximize all of our capabilities, including the power of our data. The cloud offers many benefits: 1) it accelerates the speed of delivery of new services; 2) it simultaneously reduces the cost of compute power and enables, when needed, an extraordinary amount of compute capability — called burst computing; 3) it provides that compute capability across all of our data; and 4) it allows us to be able to constantly and quickly adopt new technologies because updated cloud services are continually being added — more so in the public cloud, where we benefit from the innovation that all cloud providers create, than in the private cloud, where innovation is only our own.
Of course, we are learning a lot along the way. For example, we know we should carefully pick which applications and which data go to the public cloud versus the private cloud because of the expense, security and capabilities required. In addition, it is critical that we eventually use multiple clouds to avoid lock-in. And we intend to maintain our own expertise so that we’re never reliant on the expertise of others even if that requires additional money.
We invested approximately $2 billion to build four new, modern, private cloud-based, highly reliable and efficient data centers in the United States (we have 32 data centers globally). To date, about 50% of our applications run a large part of their processing in the public or private cloud. Approximately 70% of our data is now running in the public or private cloud. By the end of 2024, we aim to have 70% of applications and 75% of data moved to the public or private cloud. The new data centers are around 30% more efficient than our existing legacy data centers. Going to the public cloud can provide 30% additional efficiency if done correctly (efficiency improves when your data and applications have been modified, or “refactored,” to enable new cloud services). We have been constantly updating most of our global data centers, and by the end of this year, we can start closing some that are larger, older and less efficient.
The purchase of First Republic Bank was not something that we would have done just for ourselves. But the regulators relied on us to step forward (we worked hand in hand with the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the U.S. Treasury), and the purchase of First Republic helped stabilize and strengthen the U.S. financial system in a time of crisis.
The acquisition of a major company entails a lot of complexity. People tend to focus on the financial and economic outcomes, which is a reasonable thing to do. And in the case of First Republic, the numbers look rather good. We recorded an accounting gain of $3 billion on the purchase, and we told the world we expected to add more than $500 million to earnings annually, which we now believe will be closer to $2 billion. However, these results mask some of the true costs. First, approximately one-third of the incremental earning was simply deploying excess capital and liquidity, which doesn’t require purchasing a $300 billion bank — we simply could have bought $300 billion of assets. Second, as soon as the deal was announced, approximately 7,600 of our employees went from working on tasks that would benefit the future of JPMorgan Chase to working on the merger integration. Overall, the integration involves effectively combining more than 165 systems (e.g., statement, deposit, accounting and human resources) and consolidating policies, risk reporting, and other various rules and procedures. We hope to have most of the integration done by the middle of 2024.
Fortunately, we were very familiar and comfortable with all of the assets we were acquiring from First Republic. What we didn’t take on was First Republic’s excessive interest rate exposure — one of the reasons it failed — which we effectively hedged within days of the acquisition.
Our people did a great job of respectfully managing this transition, knowing that circumstances were particularly tough for our new colleagues, whom we tried to welcome with open arms. We did everything we could to redeploy individuals whose jobs were lost because of the merger (we directly hired over 5,000 people). Our approach has always been to go into an acquisition knowing we can learn things from other teams, and in this case, we did: First Republic had done an outstanding job serving high-net-worth clients and venture capitalists, and we are developing what is effectively a new business for us following First Republic’s servicing model. We will serve these high-net-worth clients through a single point of contact, supported by a concierge service model, across our distribution channels — including more than 20 new JPMorgan Chase branded branches.
In the policy section, we talk about how we may be entering one of the most treacherous geopolitical eras since World War II. And I have written in the past about high levels of debt, fiscal stimulus, ongoing deficit spending and the unknown effects of quantitative tightening (which I am more worried about than most) so I won’t repeat those views here. However, the impacts of these geopolitical and economic forces are large and somewhat unprecedented; they may not be fully understood until they have completely played out over multiple years. In any case, JPMorgan Chase must be prepared for the various potential impacts and outcomes on our company and our people.
While all companies essentially budget on a base case forecast, we are very careful not to run our business that way. Instead, we look at a range of potential outcomes for which we need to be prepared. Geopolitical and economic forces have an unpredictable timetable — they may unfold over months, or years, and are nearly impossible to put into a one-year forecast. They also have an unpredictable interplay: For example, the geopolitical situation may end up having virtually no effect on the world’s economy or it could potentially be its determinative factor.
Many key economic indicators today continue to be good and possibly improving, including inflation. But when looking ahead to tomorrow, conditions that will affect the future should be considered. For example, there seems to be a large number of persistent inflationary pressures, which may likely continue. All of the following factors appear to be inflationary: ongoing fiscal spending, remilitarization of the world, restructuring of global trade, capital needs of the new green economy, and possibly higher energy costs in the future (even though there currently is an oversupply of gas and plentiful spare capacity in oil) due to a lack of needed investment in the energy infrastructure. In the past, fiscal deficits did not seem to be closely related to inflation. In the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a general understanding that inflation was driven by “guns and butter”; i.e., fiscal deficits and the increase to the money supply, both partially driven by the Vietnam War, led to increased inflation, which went over 10%. The deficits today are even larger and occurring in boom times — not as the result of a recession — and they have been supported by quantitative easing, which was never done before the great financial crisis. Quantitative easing is a form of increasing the money supply (though it has many offsets). I remain more concerned about quantitative easing than most, and its reversal, which has never been done before at this scale.
Equity values, by most measures, are at the high end of the valuation range, and credit spreads are extremely tight. These markets seem to be pricing in at a 70% to 80% chance of a soft landing — modest growth along with declining inflation and interest rates. I believe the odds are a lot lower than that. In the meantime, there seems to be an enormous focus, too much so, on monthly inflation data and modest changes to interest rates. But the die may be cast — interest rates looking out a year or two may be predetermined by all of the factors I mentioned above. Small changes in interest rates today may have less impact on inflation in the future than many people believe.
Therefore, we are prepared for a very broad range of interest rates, from 2% to 8% or even more, with equally wide-ranging economic outcomes — from strong economic growth with moderate inflation (in this case, higher interest rates would result from higher demand for capital) to a recession with inflation; i.e., stagflation. Economically, the worst-case scenario would be stagflation, which would not only come with higher interest rates but also with higher credit losses, lower business volumes and more difficult markets. Under these many different scenarios, our company would continue to perform at least okay. Importantly, being prepared means we can continue to help our clients no matter what the future portends.
When we purchased First Republic in May 2023 following the failure of two other regional banks, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, we thought that the current banking crisis was over. Only these three banks were offsides in having the toxic combination of extreme interest rate exposure, large unrealized losses in the held-to-maturity (HTM) portfolio and highly concentrated deposits. Most of the other regional banks did not have these problems. However, we stipulated that the crisis was over provided that interest rates didn’t go up dramatically and we didn’t experience a serious recession. If long-end rates go up over 6% and this increase is accompanied by a recession, there will be plenty of stress — not just in the banking system but with leveraged companies and others. Remember, a simple 2 percentage point increase in rates essentially reduced the value of most financial assets by 20%, and certain real estate assets, specifically office real estate, may be worth even less due to the effects of recession and higher vacancies. Also remember that credit spreads tend to widen, sometimes dramatically, in a recession.
Finally, we should also consider that rates have been extremely low for a long time — it’s hard to know how many investors and companies are truly prepared for a higher rate environment.
JPMorgan Chase does business in more than 100 countries, and we have people on the ground in over 60 countries. In almost all those locations, we do research on their economy, their markets and their companies; we bank their government institutions and their companies; and we bank multinational corporations, including the U.S. multinational corporations within their borders. This is a critical role — not only in helping those countries grow and improve but also in expanding the global economy.
Many of these countries are quite complex with different laws, customs and regulations. We are occasionally asked why we bank certain companies and even certain countries, particularly when countries have some laws and customs that are counter to many of the values held in the United States. Here’s why:
JPMorgan Chase makes an extraordinary effort as part of our “normal” day-to-day outreach to engage with individual clients, small and midsized businesses, large and multinational firms, government officials, regulators and the press in cities all around the world. This dialogue is part of the normal course of business but it is also part of building trust and putting down roots in a community.
We believe that companies, and banks in particular, must earn the trust of the communities and countries in which they operate. We believe — and we are unashamed about this — that it is our obligation to help lift up the communities and countries in which we do business. We believe that doing so enhances business and the general economic well-being of those communities and countries and also enhances long-term shareholder value. JPMorgan Chase thrives when communities thrive.
This approach is integral to what we do, in great scale, around the world — and it works. We are quite clear that whether our efforts are inspired by the goodness of our hearts (as philanthropy or venture-type investing) or good business, we try to measure the actual outcomes.
It’s also interesting to point out that many of our efforts were spawned from our work around Advancing Black Pathways, Military and Veterans Affairs, and our work in Detroit. While we’ve banked Detroit for more than 90 years, our $200 million investment in its economic recovery over the last decade demonstrated that investing in communities is a smart business strategy. We are one of the largest banks in Detroit, from consumer banking to investment banking, and it’s quite clear that not only did our efforts help Detroit, but they also helped us gain market share. The extent of Detroit’s remarkable recovery was recently highlighted when Moody’s upgraded the city’s credit rating to investment grade — an extraordinary achievement just over 10 years after the city filed the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
For JPMorgan Chase, Detroit was an incubator for developing models that help us hone how we deploy our business resources, philanthropic capital, skilled volunteerism, and low-cost loans and equity investments, as well as how we identify top talent to drive successful business and societal improvements. I hope that, as shareholders, you are proud of our focus on promoting opportunity for all, both within and outside our organization, which includes economic opportunity. Some of our initiatives are listed below.
What began in 2020 as a five-year, $30 billion commitment is now transforming into a consistent business practice for our lines of business in support of Black, Hispanic, Latino and other underserved communities. By the end of 2023, we reported over $30 billion in progress toward our original goal. However, our focus is not on how much money is deployed — but on long-term impact and outcomes. And going forward, these programs will be embedded in our business-as-usual operating system.
We’re thoughtfully continuing our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Of course, JPMorgan Chase will conform as the laws evolve. We will scour our programs, our words and our actions to make sure they comply.
That said, we think all the efforts mentioned above will remain largely unchanged. And, in fact, around the world, cities and communities where we do business applaud these efforts. We also believe our initiatives make us a more inclusive company and lead to more innovation, smarter decisions and better financial results for us and for the economy overall.
We are often asked in particular about “equity” and what that word means. To us, it means equal treatment, equal opportunity and equal access … not equal outcomes. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging and trying to bridge social and economic gaps, whether they be around wealth or health. We would like to provide a fair chance for everyone to succeed — regardless of their background. And we want to make sure everyone who works at our company feels welcome.
Before I comment about culture issues, I have a confession to make: I am a full-throated, red-blooded, patriotic, free-enterprise (properly regulated, of course) and free-market capitalist. Our company is frequently asked to take a position on an issue, rule or legislation that might be considered “cultural.” When that happens, we take a deep breath and study the matter. Many of the laws in question have many specific requirements, some of which you would agree with but not others. But we are being asked to support the entire law. In cases like these, we simply make our own statement that reflects our educated view and values; however, we do not give our voice to others.
We believe in the values of democracy, including freedom of speech and expression, and are staunchly against discrimination and hate. We have not turned away — and will not turn away — customers because of their political or religious affiliations nor would we tell customers how they should spend their money.
Our commitment to these ideals is also reflected in our employees. The talent at our firm is a vibrant mix of cultures, beliefs and backgrounds. We are, of course, fully committed to freedom of speech. There are things that you can say that would be permitted under freedom of speech but would not be allowed under our Code of Conduct. For example, we do not allow intimidation, threats or highly prejudicial behavior or speech. Our Code of Conduct clearly stipulates that certain statements and behavior, while allowed under freedom of speech, can lead to disciplinary action at our company — from being reprimanded to being fired.
In May 2023, we gathered with knowledgeable and influential people from the energy industry writ large to the government and financial services arena in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an action forum. The goal was to explore various aspects of the climate challenge and try to devise effective solutions that could help lead to meaningful progress. The climate challenge is immense and complex. Addressing it requires more than making simplistic statements and rules; rather, energy systems and global supply chains need to be transformed across virtually all industries. And there is also a deep need for new research and development. Energy systems and supply chains provide the foundation of the global economy and must be treated with care.
At the same time, the opportunity here is immense. The investment required to meet climate goals — estimated at over $5 trillion annually — could generate economywide growth and opportunity at a scale the world has not seen since the Industrial Revolution.
The task for industry, policymakers and finance is to help formulate solutions that support the transition to a low-carbon economy, balancing affordable, reliable access to energy with generating economic growth.
To find a way forward, we sought input from diverse stakeholders in pursuit of a North Star. In Scottsdale and in discussions with clients across industries about what’s needed to achieve a low-carbon economy, these five action steps and reforms were top of mind:
JPMorgan Chase recently exited Climate Action 100+ and the Equator Principles. “Why?” we are asked. While we don’t necessarily disagree with some of the principles many organizations have, we make our own business decisions. We think we have some of the best-in-class environmental, social and risk standards because we have invested in our own in-house experts and matured our own risk management processes over the years. As a result, we are going to go our own way and make our own independent decisions, gathering the best learnings of experts in the field, and, of course, we will follow all legal requirements.
First, everyone should understand that conquering the climate problem needs proper government action, particularly around taxes, permitting, grids, infrastructure building and proper coordination of policies — we are not there yet. Second, there is no known technology that can fill the gap between our “aspirations” and the current trajectory of the world. We hope and believe that this will be found (for example, through carbon capture, improved batteries, hydrogen or other measures). This new technology will also require proper government research and development funding, as the effort cannot be accomplished by private enterprise alone. And third, we are going to use the word “commitment” much more reservedly in the future, clearly differentiating between aspirations we are actively striving toward and binding commitments.
For JPMorgan Chase to play the right role in tackling the climate challenge, we have organized a special group around the green economy and related infrastructure investment. This group will coordinate and inform our work across all established industry groups (from auto to real estate, energy, agriculture and others) and includes hundreds of employees devoted to these efforts.
From Tallahassee to Miami and from Tampa to Palm Bay, JPMorgan Chase has been committed to Florida for more than 130 years and has enjoyed being the bank for all communities. Each year, we contribute billions of dollars to the economy, hire and train local residents, help to revitalize neighborhoods and remove barriers to opportunity for Floridians across the state. Our partnerships with businesses, nonprofits, government entities and community organizations have enabled us to drive sustainable impact and help them achieve their goals. We couldn’t be more proud to help make opportunity happen in Florida.
This year, we forged a relationship with Inter Miami CF, one of the most recognizable sports teams in the world. Through this partnership and the newly named Chase Stadium, we’re continuing to contribute to South Florida and its local communities. In Tampa, home to nearly 6,000 of our employees, we’re triggering an additional $210 million in economic activity and creating over 660 local construction jobs through the renovation of our Highland Oaks campus and downtown Tampa office. We’re proud that one-third of all Floridians do business with us through deposits, credit cards or a mortgage. Through each of our investments across the state, we’re ensuring that residents have the resources and tools they need to thrive.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) was finished 14 years ago, and we believe it accomplished a lot of good things. But it’s been quite a while since then, and we’re still debating some very basic issues. It’s time to take a serious, hard, honest look at what has been done and what can be improved.
It’s good to remember that the United States has the best financial system in the world, with diversified, deep and experienced institutions, from banks, pension plans, hedge funds and private equity to individual investors. It has healthy public and private markets, transparency, rule of law and deep research. The best banking system in the world is a critical part of this, and, integrated with the overall financial system, is foundational to the proper allocation of capital, innovation and the fueling of America’s growth engine.
This is not about JPMorgan Chase — we believe we can manage through whatever is thrown our way. This is about the impact on all parts of the system — from smaller banks to larger regional banks that may not have the resources to handle all of these regulatory requirements. It’s also about the effect on the financial markets and the economy from the rapidly growing shadow banking system, as well as the ultimate impact on the customers, clients and communities we serve. This is about what’s right for the system.
The banking system is not static: There are startup banks, mergers, successful upstarts and fintech banks, and even Apple, which effectively acts as a bank — it holds money, moves money, lends money and so on. Nonbanks are competing with traditional banks, and, in general, this dynamism and churn are good for innovation and invention — with success and failure simply part of the robust process. Innovation runs across payments systems, budgeting, digital access, product extensions, risk and fraud prevention, and other services. Different institutions play different roles, and, importantly, small banks and big banks serve completely different strategic functions. Large banks bank multinational corporations around the world, make healthy markets, and wield technology and a product set that are the best in the world. A small bank simply cannot bank these same multinational governments and safely move the amount of money and securities that large banks do. Regional and community banks have exceptional local knowledge and presence and are critical in serving thousands of towns and certain geographies.
It is also important to recognize that the banking system as we know it is shrinking relative to private markets and fintech, which are growing and becoming increasingly competitive. And remember that many of these new players do not have the same transparency or need to abide by the extensive rules and regulations as traditional banks, even if they offer similar products — this often gives them significant advantage.
To deal with this fluid environment, banks of all sizes develop their own strategies, whether to specialize, expand geographically or embark on mergers and acquisitions. There are certain banking services where economies of scale are a competitive advantage, but not all banks need to become bigger to gain this benefit (there are many highly successful banks that are smaller). What is clear is that banks should be allowed to pursue their individual strategies, including mergers and acquisitions, as they see fit. Overall, this process should be allowed to happen — it’s part of the natural and healthy course of capitalism — and it can be done without harming the American taxpayer or economy.
While we all want a strong banking and financial system, we should step back and assess how all the regulatory steps we have taken measure up against the goals we all share. Since Dodd-Frank was signed into law in 2010, thousands of rules and reporting requirements written by 10+ different regulatory bodies in the United States alone have been added. And it would probably be an understatement to say that some are duplicative, inconsistent, procyclical, contradictory, extremely costly, and unnecessarily painful for both banks and regulators. Many of the rules have unintended consequences that are not desirable and have negative impacts, such as increasing the cost of credit for consumers (hurting lower-income Americans the most).
Both regulators and banks should want the same thing — a healthy banking system, serving its clients and striving for continuous improvement. We all should also want the enormous benefits that would come from good collaboration between regulators and bank management teams and boards.
Over time, these relationships have deteriorated, and, again, are increasingly less constructive. There is little real collaboration between practitioners — the banks — and regulators, who generally have not been practitioners in business. While we acknowledge the dedication of regulators who work with banks on a daily basis, management teams across the industry are putting in a disproportionate amount of time addressing requests for extra details, documentation and processes that extend far beyond the actual rules — and distract both regulators and management from more critical work. We should be more focused on the truly important risks for the safety of the system. And unfortunately, without collaboration and sufficient analysis, it is hard to be confident that regulation will accomplish desired outcomes without undesirable consequences. Instead of constantly improving the system, we may be making it worse. A few additional points:
Unfortunately, some recent regulations are ending up in court. You can imagine that no one wants to sue their regulators. Banks would not sue if they did not think they were right — or if they thought they had any other recourse — which they effectively do not. This is definitely not what anyone should want. A more constructive relationship with regulators would reduce confusion and uncertainty and would lead to better outcomes for banks, their shareholders, and their clients, customers and communities.
True collaboration could dramatically improve the banking system. For example:
I know this might be wishful thinking, but now would be a good time to step back and have a thorough and candid review of the thousands of new rules passed since Dodd-Frank. After this review, we should ask what is it that we really want: Do we want to try to eliminate the possibility of bank runs? Do we want to change and create liquidity rules that would essentially back most uninsured deposits? Do we want the mortgage business and leveraged lending business to be inside or outside the banking system? Do we want products that are inside and outside the banking system to be regulated the same way? Do we want to reasonably give smaller banks a leg up in purchasing a failing bank? And while Dodd-Frank did some good things, shouldn’t we take a look at the huge overlapping jurisdictions of various regulators? This overlap creates difficulties, not only for banks, but for the regulators, too. Any and all of this is achievable, and, I believe, could be accomplished with simpler rules and guidelines and without stifling our critical banking system.
Before we discuss market making and financial markets, readers should understand that market making occurs in almost all businesses. There are healthy markets in farm animals, foreign products, commodities, energy, logistics, healthcare and so on. Healthy markets increase customer choice and reduce cost. They almost always involve holding inventory and taking some risk, which is simply a part of the process. America’s financial markets are the biggest in the world — U.S. public debt and equity markets total $137 trillion, constituting the biggest “market” in the world, and are larger than America’s gross domestic product (GDP) of $27 trillion.
Market participants are not “Wall Street.” They are large and small, mainly sophisticated, global investors (pension plans, mutual funds, governments and individuals) representing retirees, veterans, individuals, unions, federal workers and others. They all benefit from our efficient, low-cost and transparent markets.
Some regulators seem to think that market making is a speculative, hedge fund-like activity — and this thinking is what might be leading them to constantly increase capital requirements. The proposed capital rules could fundamentally alter market-making activities that are critical to a thriving economy, particularly in difficult markets when market making is even more important. The new rules would raise capital requirements by 50% for major banks — which could undermine market stability, make banking services costlier and less accessible, and push even more activity to a less regulated banking system.
We should recognize that the United States has the biggest, deepest and most liquid capital markets in the world. For these markets to function, it is critical for transparency and liquidity to be in the secondary market. Market making provides this, promoting the flow of capital to real economy investments and supporting all sectors of the economy, including companies, state and local governments, universities, hospitals, pension plans and overall job creation. Without market making in the secondary market, it would be extremely difficult for companies to raise capital through the primary market — equity and debt offerings — which have totaled approximately $3.6 trillion on average over the past few years. The incredible strength of these markets enables companies of all sizes to grow and expand especially during times of volatility and stress. It also enables consumers to access cheaper credit and governments (local, state and federal) to reduce their borrowing costs.
JPMorgan Chase spends $700 million per year in extensive research coverage of nearly 5,200 companies across 83 countries. This massive effort continuously educates investors and decision makers around the world and often leads to improved governance and management. It also critically complements the firm’s market-making activities and further promotes transparency, enabling investors to make thoughtful choices around investing in capital markets.
I would also like our shareholders to know that our market making is backed by approximately $7 billion in support expenses, including over $2 billion in technology spend alone each year. This investment allows us to maintain global trading systems and constantly improve upon risk management and efficiency.
JPMorgan Chase deploys approximately $70 billion in capital to maintain our Markets franchise. This capital supports $500 billion in securities inventory (largely hedged) — and this inventory allows us to buy and sell $2 trillion (notional) in securities daily for our clients.
The main objective of market makers is to continuously quote prices and diligently manage an inventory to transact at those prices, which includes assuming certain risks to support heavy volumes and orderly trading. Market makers have a moral obligation to try to make markets in good times and in bad. Part of our brand promise is to stand ready as the willing buyer and seller. In this, we have never failed. In addition, in most cases regarding government debt, where we serve as a government securities dealer, we are legally obligated to make markets. This constant visibility into prices provided by market makers fosters investor confidence, keeps fees low and promotes economic growth by attracting more investors.
Many large market participants — for example, hedge funds and high-frequency traders, among others — have no obligation to make markets. In fact, many of these market participants often “step out” of the markets and dramatically reduce liquidity specifically when market conditions are difficult.
Market making is not particularly speculative since market makers generally hedge their positions, as you will see from some real life examples of the economics and risks. We earn revenue of approximately $100 million on a typical day. In the average year, the total is nearly $30 billion. On our $2 trillion in notional daily trading, this amounts to only one hundredth of a cent charged to the investor for these services — an extraordinarily low cost compared with any other market in the world.
Now let’s take a look at the actual risk and results versus the hypothetical risk and results. The hypothetical global market shock of the CCAR stress test has us losing $18 billion in a single day and never recovering any of it. Let’s compare that to actual losses under real, actual market stress.
Now consider these historical data points: First, over the last 10 years, the firm’s market-making business has never had a quarterly loss and has lost money on only 30 trading days. These loss days represent only 1% of total trading days, and the average loss on those days was $90 million. Second, when markets completely collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic (from March 2 through March 31, 2020, the stock market fell 16%, and bond spreads gapped out dramatically), J.P. Morgan’s market-making activities made money every day prior to the Federal Reserve’s major interventions, which stabilized the markets. During that entire month, we lost money on only two days but made $2.5 billion in Markets revenue for the month. And third, in the worst quarter ever in the markets following the 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers, we lost $1.7 billion, but we made $5.6 billion in Markets revenue for the full year. The firm as a whole did not lose money in any quarter that year. In 2009, there was a complete recovery in Markets, and we made $22 billion in Markets revenue.
You can see that our actual performance under extreme stress isn’t even close to the hypothetical losses of the stress test.
Another major fallacy is that derivatives are objects of financial destruction. In reality, derivatives are an essential part of managing financial risk and are used by investors, corporations, farmers, businesses, countries, governments and others to manage their risks. And more than 85% of derivatives are fairly basic forms of foreign exchange or interest rate swaps.
One last fallacy is that the repo markets are all about speculation. While it’s true that repo is used by certain investors to leverage up their positions, about 75% of repo is essential to normal money market functioning, i.e., is done by broker-dealers financing their actual inventory positions, money market funds investing their cash backed by highly rated collateral and clients hedging their positions.
In addition, more liquidity, not less liquidity, will be needed to maintain market stability. Large banks keep an inventory of securities they can deploy in times of stress to help soothe markets; however, with the implementation of new regulations, banks now hold 70% as much inventory in securities as they did before the 2008 financial crisis, while the total size of the market has almost tripled. Higher capital requirements will accelerate this trend even further, impacting banks’ ability to deliver support to clients and markets in times when it is needed the most.
If this proposal is enacted as drafted:
More market activity will move to unregulated institutions, out of sight from regulators and without the same level of consumer protections that Americans expect from their banks. Other market participants that don’t have holistic client relationships are less likely to provide liquidity to help stabilize markets.
In volatile times, banks have been able to intermediate to help their clients and to work with the regulators. With new regulations, they may be less able to do so. There have been several times in the past few years where banks had ample liquidity and capital but were unable to rapidly increase their intermediation in the markets due to very rigid liquidity and capital requirements. Finally, the proposed rules increase the chance that the Federal Reserve will have to step in again — and this is not something they should want to do on a regular basis but only in an extreme emergency.
In previous letters, I have described the diminishing role of public companies in the American financial system. From their peak in 1996 at 7,300, U.S. public companies now total 4,300 — the total should have grown dramatically, not shrunk. Meanwhile, the number of private U.S. companies backed by private equity firms — which does not include the rising number of companies owned by sovereign wealth funds and family offices — has grown from 1,900 to 11,200 over the last two decades. This trend is serious and may very well increase with more regulation and litigation coming. Along with a frank assessment of the regulation landscape, we really need to consider: Is this the outcome we want?
There are good reasons for private markets, and some good outcomes result from them. For example, companies can stay private longer if they wish and raise more and different types of capital without going to the public markets. However, taking a wider view, I fear we may be driving companies from the public markets. The reasons are complex and may include factors such as intensified reporting requirements (including investors’ growing needs for environmental, social and governance information), higher litigation expenses, costly regulations, cookie-cutter board governance, shareholder activism, less compensation flexibility, less capital flexibility, heightened public scrutiny and the relentless pressure of quarterly earnings.
Along with the universal proxy — which makes it easier to put poorly qualified directors on a board — the pressures to retreat from the public market are mounting. In addition, corporate governance principles are becoming more and more templated and formulaic, a negative trend. For example, proxy advisors may automatically judge directors unfavorably if they have a long tenure on the board, without a fair assessment of their actual contributions or experience. Another example is the constant battle by some proxy advisors who try to split the chairman and CEO role when there is no evidence this makes a company better off — in fact, today, lead directors generally hold most of the authorities previously assigned to the chairman. The governance of major corporations is evolving away from guidance by governance principles that focus on a company’s relationship to long-term economic value toward a bureaucratic compliance exercise. Good corporate governance is critical, and a little common sense would go a long way.
There is something very positive about detailed and disciplined quarterly financial and operating reporting. But company CEOs and boards of directors should resist the undue pressure of quarterly earnings, and it is clearly somewhat their fault when they don’t. However, it is naïve to think that the pressure doesn’t exist because companies that “disappoint” can face extensive criticism, particularly those with a new or young CEO. It’s possible for companies to take short-term actions to increase earnings, such as selling more product cheaply at the end of a quarter, cutting certain investments that may be terrific but can show accounting losses in the first year or two, or just deploying more aggressive accounting methods at times. Once shortcuts like this begin, people all over the company understand that it is okay to “stretch” to meet your numbers. This could put you on a treadmill to ruin. Obviously, a company should not resort to these tactics, but it does happen in the public markets — and it’s probably less likely in the private markets.
One of the reasons it is less desirable to be a public company is because of the spiraling frivolousness of the annual shareholder meeting, which has devolved into mostly a showcase of grandstanding and competing special interest groups. We should treat shareholders with tremendous respect — and we do. At JPMorgan Chase, we are constantly talking with our investors — our directors, our lead director and our corporate governance experts visit most of our major investors whether they be direct owners or asset managers who manage the money for others. Meeting with your shareholders and investors is critical, but the annual shareholder meeting itself has become ineffective. We should try to come up with a far more constructive alternative.
There are essentially two main proxy advisors in the United States. One is called Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), and the second is called Glass Lewis. These proxy advisors started out providing reams of data from companies to help their institutional investor clients vote on proxy matters (information on executive compensation, stock returns, detail on directors, policies and so on). However, they soon also began to provide advice on how shareholders should vote on proxy matters. And, in fact, institutional investors generally execute their voting on an ISS or Glass Lewis platform, which often includes a clear statement of the advisory service’s position.
I should also point out, because it may be relevant, that ISS is owned by Deutsche Boerse, a German company, and Glass Lewis is owned by Peloton Capital, a Canadian private equity firm. I question whether American corporate governance should be determined by for-profit international institutions that may have their own strong feelings about what constitutes good corporate governance.
Asset managers (who manage money on behalf of others) and institutional investors (e.g., pension plans and endowments) may rely on a variety of information sources to support their valuation decision-making process. While data and recommendations may form pieces of the information mosaic, their votes should ultimately be based on an independent application of their own voting guidelines and policies. To the extent they use recommendations from proxy advisors in their decision-making processes, they should disclose that they do so and should be satisfied that the information upon which they are relying is accurate and relevant. However, many companies would argue that this information is frequently not balanced, not representative of the full view and not accurate. In addition, companies complain that they often cannot get the data corrected, and, therefore, a vote may go uncorrected.
Almost all asset managers receive proxy advisor data and recommendations; while some asset managers vote completely independently of this information, the majority do not. Most asset managers have formed corporate governance or stewardship committees that are responsible for their voting, and these committee positions are often held not by portfolio managers and research analysts (i.e., the people buying and analyzing the individual securities) but by stewardship experts. While it is good to have stewardship experts, the reality is that many of these committees default large portions of what they do to proxy advisors and, more troubling, make it harder for actual portfolio managers to override this decision making.
Some have argued that it’s too hard and too expensive to review the large number of proxies and proxy proposals — this is both lazy and wrong. If issues are important to a company, they should be important to the shareholder — for the most part, only a handful of proposals are important to companies.
Enhancements to the firm’s internal proxy voting process will include:
Taken together, these steps are designed to respond to a growing perception (and, I believe, reality) that the asset management industry generally places undue reliance on proxy advisors in how proxies are voted. We believe these actions will strengthen our relationships with our clients and with companies while helping to build trust between shareholders, investors and companies.
I have already mentioned some of the benefits of private credit, and I’ll now mention some more. Many people in the private credit arena are very smart and creative and want to help the companies they invest in navigate through market shoals. They can move quickly, discreetly and flexibly. Most generally understand that bad accounting drives bad decisions, and their goal is to make the right decisions for the future of the company.
On the other hand, not all players are that good. And problems in the private credit market caused by the bad players can leak onto the good ones, even though private credit money is locked up for years. If investors feel mistreated, they will cry foul, and the government will respond by putting a laser focus on the business. It’s a reasonable assumption that at some point regulations will focus on the private markets as they do on the public markets.
This scrutiny will include a look at how private credit values its assets, which isn’t as transparent as public market valuations. In addition, private market loans commonly lack liquidity in the secondary market and are not generally supported by in-depth market research.
New financial products that grow extremely rapidly often become an area of unexpected risk in the markets. Frequently, the weaknesses of new products, in this case private credit loans, may only be seen and exposed in bad markets, which private credit loans have not yet faced. When credit spreads gap out, when interest rates go up and when some leveraged companies suffer in the recession, we will find out how those loans survive stress testing. In addition, they can create a little bit of a “credit crunch” for borrowers since it might be hard for private creditors to roll over loans under those conditions. Under stress conditions, private creditors would have to charge exorbitant prices that companies simply cannot afford in order to book the new loan at par. Banks are in a slightly different position.
Banks generally try to be there for their borrowers in difficult times — striving to roll over loans, renegotiate terms and raise additional capital. Banks do this for multiple reasons: They normally feel an obligation to help their clients, they have long-term relationships and they can commonly earn other sources of revenue from client-driven transactions. Banks can also flex their capital and lending base as needed by their clients. This is because a bank can and should make decisions to help companies through good times and bad, seeking to retain them as long-term clients across many areas of the bank. They can and do take “losses” that help the client maintain the franchise. But an asset manager must act as a “fiduciary” of other people’s money and cannot lend based on a moral obligation or potential future relationship.
Recently, we have been witnessing a convergence between the public and private markets. But it’s too soon to say how this ultimately will play out, particularly if we go through a recessionary cycle.
I always enjoy sharing what I’ve learned from watching others, reading and experiencing through my own journey.
The military, which often operates in extreme intensity of life and death and in the fog and uncertainty of war, uses the term “OODA loop” (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — repeat), a strategic process of constant review, analysis, decision making and action. One cannot overemphasize the importance of observation and a full assessment — the failure to do so leads to some of the greatest mistakes, not only in war but also in business and government.
To properly manage any business situation, you need to perform a full and complete assessment of it. In business, you have to understand your competitors, their distribution, their economics, their innovations, and their strengths and weaknesses. You also need to understand customers and their changing preferences, along with your own costs, your people and their skills. Then there’s knowing how other factors fit in, like technology, risk, motivations … hope you get the point. For countries, you need a thorough grasp of their economies, strengths and weaknesses, population and education, access to raw materials, laws and regulations, history and culture. Research, data and analytics should be at a very detailed level and constantly reassessed. Only after you complete this diligent study can you start to make plans with a high degree of success.
I have frequently wondered about all the nonstop road trips, client meetings, briefings, greetings, bus trips, and visits to call centers, operating centers and branches, regulators and government officials, among others: Did they make a difference? The answer is absolutely yes because they enabled a process of constant learning, assessment and modification of best practices — gaining insights from employees to clients to competitors. Employees will tell you what you are doing well or poorly if you simply ask them, and they know you want to hear the real answer. Curiosity is a form of humility — acknowledging that you don’t know everything. Responding to curiosity allows other people to speak freely. Facts and details matter and inform a deeper and deeper analysis that allows you to continually revise and update your plans. This, of course, also means that you are constantly admitting prior mistakes.
Very often companies or individuals develop narratives based upon beliefs that are very hard to dislodge but are often wrong — and they can lead to terrible mistakes. A few examples will suffice. Stripe, Inc. built a payments business by working with developers — something we never would have imagined but might have figured out if we had tried to seek out what others were doing in this area. Branches were being closed, both at Bank One and Chase, because the assumption was that they would not be needed in the future. We underinvested for years in the wealth management business because we were always focused on the value of deposits versus investments. Question everything.
It’s often hard to change your own attitudes and beliefs, especially those you may have held on to for some time. But you must be open to it. When you learn something that is different from what you thought, it may affect many conclusions you have, not just one. Try not to allow yourself to become rigid or “weaponized,” where other employees or interest groups jazz you up so much that you become a weapon on their behalf. This makes it much harder to see things clearly for yourself. When people disagree with you, seek out where they may be partially right. This opens the door for a deeper understanding and avoids binary thinking.
There is too much emphasis on short-term, monthly data and too little on long-term trends and on what might happen in the future that would influence long-term outcomes. For example, today there is tremendous interest in monthly inflation data, although it seems to me that every long-term trend I see increases inflation relative to the last 20 years. Huge fiscal spending, the trillions needed each year for the green economy, the remilitarization of the world and the restructuring of global trade — all are inflationary. I’m not sure models could pick this up. And you must use judgment if you want to evaluate impacts like these.
Also, a block of time as short as one year is an artificial framework for judging the impact of long-term trends that could easily play out over years. A helpful exercise is to think “future back,” in which you imagine different future outcomes, including the ones you want, and then work backward to events that are happening today (or that might happen or that you cause to happen), closely examining the connections between those events and your projected or desired outcomes. Those connections inform your risk and R&D planning. Similarly, when companies compare the attributes of their products and services with their competitors, they usually only consider where they are versus their competitors. But nothing is static — they should consider where their competitors will be in the future. Conditions are always changing, crises are always emerging. When analyzing the playing field, it is better to assume that your competitors are strong and are already in the process of improving and innovating. This minimizes the chance of arrogance leading to complacency.
Sometimes you should take the time to measure twice and cut once. And then sometimes making a quick decision is better than delaying. You should try to distinguish between the two. For example, with decisions that are hard to reverse, it’s usually better to go slow. With other decisions where you can test, learn, probe and change direction, it’s often better to go fast. It’s been my experience that it’s hard for some people to actually decide and act. This could be from analysis paralysis, lack of “perfect” information, fear of failure or the feeling that full consensus is needed before a decision can be reached. But whatever it is, it can slow down and possibly seriously damage a company.
To get people to think like decision makers and take a strong point of view, we like to ask, “What would you do if you were king or queen for a day?” It helps shift the direction to individual decision making. We also ask questions like, “What would you wish for if you knew X was going to happen?” (for example, higher interest rates). Decision making takes a mix of courage, grit and guts.
One exercise that I find useful (and sometimes painful) is to draw up a list of important decisions that need to be made — the ones I often avoid confronting. So I take time every Sunday to think about these tough issues and almost always make progress. Progress doesn’t always mean that you come to the final conclusion — sometimes it’s just a very rational next step that can put you on a path to the final decision.
Try to give yourself the time to decide. Make sure you speak with the right people and make sure the right people are in the room. Information should be fully shared. People should be made very comfortable with open debate. Quite often, the “right” answer is simply waiting to be found — you don’t have to guess.
There are huge benefits to crowdsourcing intelligence. It is a form of full assessment, a strategy for getting the best ideas and challenging the status quo. We should do this for almost every major decision. It is perfectly fine on some occasions to compromise and gain consensus, particularly on decisions that are not critical and can easily be reversed. Often people spend too much time debating issues that are simply not that important; it’s better to decide and move on. Also, before you compromise, you should know exactly what you want to achieve and the consequences of any tradeoffs. However, sometimes compromise and consensus cannot work and only lead to a feel-good decision that is probably wrong — this could be the road to ruin.
The use of committees can be good when done properly. For example, if our risk committees could do a full assessment and crowdsource all potential risks, that would lead to better decision making. I will give one very personal and painful example, which is when we had a major trading scandal, called The London Whale. The scandal was not caused by the complexity of the trade but rather the failure to go to the proper Risk committee for a thorough review, which should have happened but didn’t. I have no doubt that had the trade been raised there, the flaws would have been exposed immediately, thereby dramatically reducing or eliminating the problem. On the other hand, the opposite can happen when a committee, with everyone staring at each other, devolves into herd-like behavior with people looking for confirmation and ending up with a compromise that is a poor choice.
Good leadership involves great observation and the ability to act, but there is more …
You can be great at assessment, you can be brilliant and you may often be willing to act. But all of that is not good enough for “complete” leadership. To become a true leader, you need to be trusted and you must earn your respect, every day. People have to know that you do not have ulterior motives and that you’re trying to do the right thing — not trying to burnish your personal reputation. Good people want to work for people they respect, and they will not respect people who take all the credit and share all the blame. People need to know that even when you make mistakes, you’re willing to admit them and take corrective action. And there is more …
The reason I’ve always hesitated to talk about “vision” is because often it is the basic BS of corporate speak — that somehow if you impart your vision to people, they will take the mountain. What it really is all about is this: After you’ve done your full assessment and decision making, you can then continuously educate, explain, train, simplify, propel and fight. But this only works if people know you are in the trenches with them, if they understand the mission and if they are there side by side with your effort.
We know that bureaucracy can lead to politics, corporate stasis and terrible decisions. So you can communicate your vision about how to fight bureaucracy by telling stories about the silly things we do — but with a smile — and then by showing people that you will actually fix the problems.
Finally, your vision needs to be clear, coherent and consistent. Within an organization, people very quickly pick up the pattern of management saying one thing but doing another. Because if words and actions are inconsistent (for example, and I could give many, when we say we want employees to be treated with respect, but we allow a jerk to be their boss), confidence in leadership will be eroded.
Heart matters. And it makes a difference when people know and see that you actually care. One example: Many years ago when I was new to JPMorgan Chase, I learned that the company’s security guards had been outsourced — to save money. Since after outsourcing, when the same guards continued coming to work every day at the same salary, I wondered, “How could this be?” (FYI, this was brought to my attention by the head of the Service Employees International Union, who came to see me over the objection of my management team.) The reason we were saving money is because the healthcare benefits were cut in half for the guards and their family members (currently worth approximately $15,000 a year), and the savings were split with us. This was a heartless thing to do — and the second I found out, I reversed the decision. JPMorgan Chase’s success will not be built off the backs of our guards — it will be the result of fair treatment of all of our employees — and we’re thankful that many of those guards are still with our company today.
You know heart and soul when you see it in effect on sports teams or with “the boys in the boat” — it’s a beautiful thing to watch. It’s not as obvious, but it happens in business, too.
Of course, I’m not bringing this up as a matter of corporate governance or a corporation’s purpose: A business should, over the long run, try to maximize shareholder value. It is completely obvious that running a decent business —treating everyone ethically and earning trust and respect in all your communities — is not only fundamental to shareholder value but also to a healthy society.
In past years, I have written extensively about public policy issues. It is important to engage in these conversations, particularly around domestic economic policy because policy matters. While JPMorgan Chase can execute specific plans to improve outcomes for customers and communities, there is no replacement for effective government policies that add to the general well-being of the country. A stronger and more prosperous country will make us a stronger company.
As CEO of this company, every year I visit numerous countries around the globe. I meet with foreign government leaders, presidents and prime ministers, business leaders, and civic and academic experts, which allows me to learn a significant amount about how public policy is executed around the world. It also reinforces some of the critical values and virtues that are essential to a healthy country.
Every time I see the American flag, it reminds me of the values and virtues of this country and its founding principles conceived in liberty and dedicated to the notion that all men and women are created equal. Talk with someone who has recently become a naturalized citizen or watch a ceremony where groups of people take the oath to America, and you will see extraordinary joy and newfound pride. They now live free, with individual rights protected by the Constitution and with their life and the well-being of their family and community protected by the U.S. military. As Americans, we have much to be grateful for and much to defend.
If you read the newspaper from virtually any day of any year since World War II, there is abundant coverage on wars — hot and cold — inflation, recession, polarized politics, terrorist attacks, migration and starvation. As appalling as these events have been, the world was generally on a path to becoming stronger and safer. When terrible events happen, we tend to overestimate the effect they will have on the global economy. Recent events, however, may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since World War II — we should not take them lightly.
February 24, 2022 is another day in history that will live in infamy. On that day, 190,000 Russian soldiers invaded a free and democratic European country — importantly, somewhat protected by the threat of nuclear blackmail. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent abhorrent attack on Israel and ongoing violence in the Middle East should have punctured many assumptions about the direction of future safety and security, bringing us to this pivotal time in history. America and the free Western world can no longer maintain a false sense of security based on the illusion that dictatorships and oppressive nations won’t use their economic and military powers to advance their aims — particularly against what they perceive as weak, incompetent and disorganized Western democracies. In a troubled world, we are reminded that national security is and always will be paramount, even if its importance seems to recede in tranquil times.
The fallout from these events should also lay to rest the idea that America can stand alone. Of course, U.S. leaders must always put America first, but global peace and order are vital to American interests. Only America has the full capability to lead and coalesce the Western world, though we must do so respectfully and in partnership with our allies. Without cohesiveness and unity with our allies, autocratic forces will divide and conquer the bickering democracies. America needs to lead with its strengths — not only its military but also its economic, diplomatic and moral forces. And now we must do so as America’s leadership is being challenged around the world. There is nothing more important.
In our increasingly complex world, there is a vital interrelationship between domestic and foreign economic policy, particularly around trade, investment, national security and other issues. And, of course, while American voters and leadership set U.S. foreign policy, being a constructive part of the global conversation has become more important than ever.
If you doubt how important public policy is for the health of a country, you need to look no further than the recent history of Greece, Ireland or Singapore. Each of these countries, starting from deeply challenging places, implemented effective government and policies that have done a great job of lifting up their people when many thought it wasn’t possible. Sweden is another great example of a country with good broad-based policies that have succeeded at precisely what we all may want — a dynamic, innovative, free-market economy (Sweden actually has fewer government-owned enterprises than America) and safety nets that work. Conversely, you need to look no further than North Korea or Venezuela to see the complete destruction and havoc that terrible public policies (often in the name of the people) can cultivate.
Strategy by its nature must be comprehensive. In the rest of this section, I try to answer the question: What must we do to ensure that the world stays safe, not only for America but for freedom and democracy? A comprehensive strategy entails four important pillars, and we must succeed at each:
Only America has the full capabilities of military might, economic power and the principles that most people around the world yearn for — based on “liberty and justice for all” and the proposition that all people are created equal. America remains the bastion of freedom and the arsenal of democracy.
In the free and democratic Western world, and, in fact, for many other countries, there is no real or good alternative to America. The only other potential superpower is China. Other nations know they can rely on the founding principles of America. If we reach out our hand, most nations will happily take that hand. America is still the most prosperous nation on the planet, which not only can guarantee our military strength but also positions us to help our allies develop and grow their nations (though we should minimize the “our way or the highway” type of behavior). This leadership is needed today to help Ukraine stay free in its battle with Russia.
America continues to be the envy of much of the world, and as we’ve seen with the challenges at our borders, there is a reason people want to come here and not to autocratic nations. If you opened America’s borders to the rest of the world, I have little doubt that hundreds of millions of people would want to move here. By contrast, not many would want to emigrate to autocratic nations. Also, I have little doubt that if most investors across the globe could only invest in one country, they would choose the United States. Beyond our country’s borders, people and nations around the world understand the role that America has played in promoting world peace — known as Pax Americana. For the most part, Pax Americana has kept the world relatively peaceful since World War II and helped lead to enormous global economic prosperity, which has helped lift 1.3 billion people out of poverty.
Modern America does not engage in economic coercion or foreign wars to steal land or treasure. The fact that some of our foreign excursions might have been misguided does not negate this. We helped rebuild Europe and Japan after the devastation of World War II, and we, with our allies, have helped create global institutions to maintain peace. We are still trusted.
“We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak,” said Ronald Reagan in 1980.
So far, the Western world has done a good job in strengthening military alliances in response to the war in Ukraine. Ukraine is essentially the front line that needs immediate support. Providing that support is the best way to counter autocratic forces that would seek to weaken the Western world, particularly America. But the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East could become far worse and spread in unpredictable ways. Most important, the specter of nuclear weapons — probably still the greatest threat to mankind — hovers as the ultimate decider, which should strike deep fear in all our hearts. The best protection starts with an unyielding resolve to do whatever we need to do to maintain the strongest military on the planet — a commitment that is well within our economic capability.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in his book Exercise of Power, writes extensively in the first chapter about “the symphony of power.” He makes the critical point that America has often overused and misused military power and has massively underused other muscles — diplomacy, intelligence, communication (explaining to the world the benefits of democracy and free enterprise) and comprehensive economic policy.
America has the most extensive group of partners, friends and allies — both military and economic — that the world has probably ever seen. We should put this to better use.
International isolationism has run through American foreign policy throughout our history, frequently with good reason. The chant, “Don’t get involved in foreign wars” was often right. That said, the American public should remember that even after the Revolutionary War, we did, in fact, have British and French armies on our soil. The sinking of American merchant and passenger ships during World War I and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II brought isolationism to a close for a time. America is never far from being dragged into terrible conflicts. Global wars come to our shores whether we like it or not — we need to stay engaged.
In perilous periods of history when our allies and other democracies were under serious assault, great American leaders have inspired the American people — through words and actions — to stand up to help and defend them. Staying on the sidelines during battles of autocracy and democracy, between dictatorship and freedom, is simply not an option for America today. Ukraine is the front line of democracy. If the war goes badly for Ukraine, you may see the splintering of Pax Americana, which would be a disaster for the whole free world. Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle, and ensuring their victory is ensuring America first. It is imperative that our national leaders explain to the American people what is at stake and make a powerful case – with energy, consistency and clarity – for our strong enduring commitment to Ukraine’s survival for as long as it takes (and it could take years).
One last point: Ukraine needs our help immediately, but it’s important to understand that much of the money that America is directing to Ukraine is for purchasing weapons and equipment, most of which will be built in America. Not only is our aid helping Ukraine, but it is going directly to American manufacturers, and it is helping the country rebuild our military industrial capacity for the next generation.
Sustaining America’s economic strength is a bedrock for our long-term military strength. There are many things we need to do to strengthen the U.S. economy, and I talk about that later in this section. This discussion is about foreign economic policies – the economic battlefield.
The whole Western world is rethinking and reimagining its military strategies and alliances. We need to do the same for our economic strategies and alliances, but we should be guided by a comprehensive global strategy that deals with critical issues. Done properly, such a strategy would help strengthen, coalesce and possibly be the glue that holds together Western democratic alliances over decades.
Foreign economic policy involves trade and investment, export controls, secure and resilient supply chains, and the execution of sanctions and any related industrial policies. It must also include development finance — think of the “Belt and Road” efforts in China — which are critical to most developing nations. This framework should tell us not only how to deal with our allies but also how to work with nonaligned nations around the world. These strategies should not be aimed against any one country (such as China) but rather be focused on keeping the world safe for democracy and free enterprise.
It is a valid point that the Western world — both government and business — essentially underestimated the growing strength and potential threat of China. It’s also true that China has been comprehensively and strategically focused on these economic issues, all while we slept. But let’s not cry over spilled milk — let’s just fix it.
We missed the potential threat from three vantage points. The first is companies’ overreliance on China as the sole link in their supply chain, which can create vulnerabilities and reduces resiliency. But to the extent this involves everyday items, like clothes, sneakers, vaccine compounds and consumer goods, this dependency is not as critical or complex and will eventually be sorted out.
The second is the most critical. The United States cannot rely on any potential adversaries for materials essential to our national security — think rare earths, 5G and semiconductors, penicillin and materials critical to essential pharmaceuticals, among others. We also cannot be sharing vital technologies that can enhance an adversary’s military capabilities. The United States should properly and narrowly define these issues and then act unilaterally, if necessary, to fix them.
The third is also complex, which is countering unfair competition or “mercantilist” behavior in critical industries; think electric vehicles, renewable energy and AI, among others. Examples of this would be where a state, any state, uses government powers, capital, subsidies or other means to dominate critical industries and deeply damage the economic position of other nations. Weakening a country economically can render it a virtual “vassal state,” reliant on potential adversaries for essential goods and services, which also weakens it militarily. We cannot cede our important resources and capabilities to potential adversaries.
All these issues can be resolved, though they will take time and need devoted effort.
Every nation will have different national security issues. For example, Europe in general and countries like India, Japan and Korea need reliable, affordable and secure energy; many nations would put food security as their top concern. This means that we must work with our allies to accomplish our own goals and to help them accomplish theirs. We have extraordinary common interests in our joint security: We must hang together — because if we don’t, we will assuredly hang separately.
We must have a better understanding of trade. As a nation, we refuse to get into genuine trade discussions, but this ignores the complete and obvious truth — we already have trade relationships with all these countries. Approximately 92% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States. Increased trade allows our workers and farmers to access those markets. We should negotiate trade agreements that can achieve more, economically, for ourselves and our allies, as well as meet all of our national security needs. While it is appropriate to use trade to continue to nudge allies in the right direction around human rights and climate, this objective should be subordinated to our national interests of long-term security.
Negotiating must be done in concert with our allied nations so as not to cause a fissure in economic relations. This is critical — strong economic bonds will help ensure strong military alliances. The Inflation Reduction Act has much good in it (more on this later), but it angered many of our allies. To them, the bill was by America and for America, and, subsequently, they felt a need to match it so their businesses would not be disadvantaged. The terms of the legislation could have been better negotiated with our allies in mind, strengthening our economic ties with the free world.
We should also immediately re-enter, if possible, the prior negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not only is it good for the economy, but it also could be a brilliant, strategic, economic security move — an economic alliance that binds us with 11 other important countries (including Australia, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and Vietnam). Geopolitically and strategically, this might be one of the most important moves to counter China. While this is a challenging step, our political leaders need to explain and lead — and not be afraid of dealing with the tough issues. We also need to acknowledge that there have been real negative job impacts as a result of trade, which are usually concentrated around certain areas and businesses. So any new trade policy should be combined with a greatly enhanced Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides retraining, income assistance and relocation for those workers directly impacted by trade.
Trade is realpolitik, and the recent cancellation of future liquified natural gas (LNG) projects is a good example of this fact. The projects were delayed mainly for political reasons — to pacify those who believe that gas is bad and that oil and gas projects should simply be stopped. This is not only wrong but also enormously naïve. One of the best ways to reduce CO2 for the next few decades is to use gas to replace coal. When oil and gas prices skyrocketed last winter, nations around the world — wealthy and very climate-conscious nations like France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as lower-income nations like Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam that could not afford the higher cost — started to turn back to their coal plants. This highlights the importance of safe, secure and affordable energy. Second, the export of LNG is a great economic boon for the United States. But most important is the realpolitik goal: Our allied nations that need secure and affordable energy resources, including critical nations like Japan, Korea and most of our European allies, would like to be able to depend on the United States for energy. This now puts them in a difficult position — they may have to look elsewhere for such supplies, turning to Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or maybe even Russia. We need to minimize anything that can tear at our economic bonds with our allies.
The strength of our domestic production of energy gives us a “power advantage” — cheaper and more reliable energy, which creates economic and geopolitical advantages.
In some cases, industrial policy (using government resources to subsidize investments to help make businesses more competitive) may be the only solution for quickly building up the industries we need (rare earths and semiconductors, among others) to guarantee resilient national security. The IRA and CHIPS Act are good examples of this and government has to get it right.
Such policy can also be used to help combat unfair competitive policies of nations that are using state capitalism and state control to dominate critical industries. However, when crafting industrial policy, the function of government needs to be narrowly defined and kept simple; i.e., governmental jurisdiction should be limited to very specific products and probably to what we know works, such as tax credits and, to a lesser extent, loan guarantees. And industrial policy should include twin provisions: 1) strict limitations on political interference, like social policies, and 2) specific permitting requirements, which, if not drastically improved, will badly inhibit our ability to make investments and allow infrastructure to be built. Adding social policy, politics and matters other than simple tax credits dramatically reduces the economic efficiency of industrial policy and creates conditions for corporate America to feed at the trough of government largess. We should quickly address how we can improve on already executed legislation. We do not want to look back and have great regrets about how so much of this policy work failed.
There are those who argue that the U.S. government needs much more far-reaching industrial policy to be able to micromanage and accomplish its many ambitious objectives. To those I say, read further in this section about how ineffective so many government policies have been.
Over the last 20 years, China has been executing a more comprehensive economic strategy than we have. The country’s leaders have successfully grown their nation and, depending on how you measure it, have the first or second largest economy in the world. That said, many question the current economic focus of China’s leadership as they don’t have everything figured out. While China has become the largest trading partner to many countries around the world, its own GDP per person is $13,000. And the country continues to be beset by many economic and domestic issues.
China has its own national security concerns. The country is located in a very politically complex part of the world, and many of China’s actions have caused its neighbors (e.g., Japan, Korea, Philippines, among others) to start to re-arm and, in fact, draw closer to the United States. It also surprises many Americans to hear that while our country is 100% energy sufficient, China needs to import 10 million barrels of oil a day. It is clear that China’s new leadership has set a different course, with a much more intense focus on national security, military capability and internal development. That is their right, and we simply need to adjust to it.
America still has an enormously strong hand — plenty of food, water and energy; peaceful neighbors; and what remains the most prosperous and dynamic economy the world has ever seen, with a per person GDP of over $80,000 a year. Most important, our nation is blessed with the benefit of true freedom and liberty. See the sidebar on the amazing power of freedom later in this section.
While we may always have a complex relationship with China (made all the more complicated and serious by ongoing wars), the country’s vast size and importance to so many other nations requires us to stay engaged — thoughtfully and without fear. At the same time, we need to build and execute our own long-term, comprehensive economic security strategy to keep our position safe and secure. I believe that respectful, strong and consistent engagement would be best for both our countries and the rest of the world.
The international rules-based order established by the Western world after World War II is clearly under attack by outside forces, somewhat weakened by its own failures and inability to keep up with the increasingly complex world. This international order relies on a web of military alliances, trade agreements (e.g., World Trade Organization), development finance (e.g., International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) and related global tax and investment policies and diplomacy organizations (e.g., United Nations), which have evolved into a confusing and overlapping regime of policies. You can now add to it the new issues of cyber warfare, digital trade and privacy, and global taxes, among others.
It might be a good idea to convene a group of like-minded leaders to build and improve upon what already exists. The time may be right for a reimagined Bretton Woods — and by this, I mean revitalizing our global architecture. Since too many parts of the world have been neglected, any new system has to take into account and properly address the needs of all nations, including areas of concentrated poverty.
While we hope the wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East will end eventually (and, we hope, successfully from the standpoint of our allies), these other critical economic battles could possibly continue throughout our lifetime. If the Western world is slowly split apart over the next few decades, it will likely be the result of our failure to effectively address crucial global economic challenges.
When you travel around the United States and talk with people of all types and persuasions, there is a rather common refrain; namely, why are we helping foreign nations with the safety of their borders and economies when we are not doing a particularly good job of protecting our own? While there is no moral equivalency in these arguments, they are understandable. It is clear that many Americans feel we need to do a better job here at home before we can focus over there. We can understand why some people living in this country, who have been neglected for decades, ask how their government can find the money for Ukraine and other parts of the world but not for them. It is a reasonable question.
From my point of view, our highly charged, emotional and political domestic issues are centered around 1) immigration and lack of border security and 2) the fraying of the American dream, particularly for low-income and rural Americans who feel left behind amid the growing wealth and prosperity of others around them. Please read the sidebar below, which I believe explains the legitimate frustration of some of our citizens. And I agree with them.
In the sidebar, I also explain how two policies (a large expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and focus on work skills and job outcomes at high schools, community colleges and colleges) would not only dramatically increase both the income and employment opportunities for many of those left behind but would also have the virtue of actually growing the workforce. The combined effect of all of this would be quite a boon to our GDP.
I believe that many affected Americans are not angry at hardworking, law-abiding immigrants and, in fact, acknowledge the critical role immigrants continue to play in building this wonderful country. Rather, they are angry that America has not implemented proper border control and immigration policies. It is astounding that many in Congress know what to do and want to do it but are simply unable to pass legislation because of partisan politics. Congress did come close on a few occasions — and I hope they keep trying.
For over two decades, since 2000, America has grown at an anemic rate of 2%. We should have strived for and achieved 3% growth. Had we done so, GDP per person today would be $16,000 higher, which would, in turn, have paid for better healthcare, childcare, education and other services. Importantly, the best way to handle our excess deficit and debt issues is to maximize economic growth.
Growth policies include (the list could be very long so I’ll just mention a few):
The Wall Street Journal
Those of us who have benefited the most from this country bear even greater responsibility to do this. It’s perfectly understandable that institutions, including businesses, unions and industries, lobby in Washington, D.C., to protect themselves — in good ways and bad — but we should more regularly put national interests ahead of self-interests. It’s good to want to ensure well-paying jobs and healthy industries. But it is not good when it reduces competition, stops the deployment of enhanced technology, harms efficiency, creates fake jobs or builds bridges to nowhere or damages the general health of the economy. Doing the right thing, the right way – which is achievable – would be better for everyone. As former President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
We can safely say that America is an exceptional nation built and grounded on principles — principles of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise (capitalism), and the freedom and empowerment brought to us by our democracy through the power to elect our leaders and of our Constitution, which makes these individual freedoms sacrosanct. Much of the world yearns to be here because of those principles — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We should extol those virtues while recognizing that America has never been a perfect nation, like all other nations. We can acknowledge our flaws and strive to constantly correct them, without denigrating our nation.
There were very few positives from the pandemic, but I’m mentioning one, which, unfortunately, didn’t last, but reflected the best of us. In New York City, at 7 p.m. every evening, people throughout the city would open their windows, shouting and screaming and banging pots and pans to show gratitude to the essential workers — sanitation workers, police, firefighters, emergency responders, nurses and doctors. Of course, these workers were always essential, but I was hoping that spirit and civility would become deeply embedded and have longer lasting effects in our society.
I can understand when an individual for conscientious reasons chooses not to do work that helps our military. But I cannot understand when an entire company takes that position. How can we have a sense of shared sacrifice, when America is home to 18 million veterans who were willing to risk their lives for America’s safety, and yet some companies are not even willing to use their fingertips to help?
For example, back in 1969 the cancellation of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs by the country’s most prestigious universities and colleges likely fueled the great divide – between elites and others in our country – that persists today. Our strength as a nation is best served when the best students and the best soldiers are brought together and we would all benefit from more civility and better teaching around basic virtues like hard work, shared sacrifice, justice, rationality and more respect for the enduring values of American freedom and free enterprise.
We can start by trying to understand other people’s and other voters’ points of views, even around deeply emotional topics. We can stop insulting whole classes of voters. We can stop name calling. We can stop blame-shifting and scapegoating. We can stop being petty. Politicians can cease insulting, baiting and belittling each other, which diminishes them and the voter. It has also become too acceptable for some politicians to say one thing in private and deliver a completely different message in public. It would also be nice to see some cabinet members from the opposing party. We should also stop degrading and demonizing American business and American institutions, which are the best in the world, because it erodes confidence in our very country.
There is no question that social media has some real negative effects, from the manipulation of elections to the increasingly documented negative effects on the mental health of children. These are issues impacting our individual and collective spheres, and it’s time for social media companies to take more action to remedy these challenges — and swiftly. Rapid advances in technology will not only make these existing issues harder to address, but they will likely create new ones. The current state of the online information landscape has wide-ranging implications on trust in institutions, information integrity and more — and it bears on institutions like ours, where platform policy has increasingly widespread implications for concerns about fraud, security and other issue spaces.
A range of tools and approaches is required to address this complex and important situation — and there are several measures that platform companies can immediately enact, voluntarily, while strengthening and improving their business models. One common sense and modest step would be for social media companies to further empower platform users’ control over what they see and how it is presented, leveraging existing tools and features — like the alternative feed algorithm settings some offer today. I believe many users (not just parents) would appreciate a greater ability to more carefully curate their feeds; for example, prioritizing educational content for their children.
Platforms could also consider enhanced authentication measures; i.e., having users identify themselves to the platform or to a trusted third party. This would have the virtue of increasing individual accountability and reducing imposters, bots and possibly foreign political actors on platforms. It would have immediate benefits for users who prefer content from authenticated sources that take responsibility for their postings. There are clear competing values that need to be balanced in such an approach, including those related to our cherished right to free speech, individual privacy and inclusion (for example, roughly 850 million people globally don’t have a way to easily authenticate themselves today). There are also legitimate questions as to whether authentication would be used as a tool to chill or block speech or quash bona fide political dissenters, and real work needs to be done to identify policy and technical solutions that balance such risks and benefits.
I offer these approaches as a starting place, understanding that it's crucial to continue honest conversation across sectors about the immediate, incremental improvements we can make to our online public square, considering the high stakes involved in how information is created and shared.
Effective measures will require time, money, learning and improvement, all in service of significantly enhancing the well-being, quality, and civility of our experiences online and in the world around us.
Companies big and small create jobs, pay for employee healthcare and benefits, and build bridges, roads and hospitals. The people who work for and run these companies care deeply about their country — they are patriots, and they want to see people and communities succeed and prosper.
Unfortunately, the message America hears is that the federal government does not value business — that business is the problem and not part of the solution. There are fewer individuals in government who have any significant experience in starting or running a company, which is apparent every day in the political rhetoric that demonizes businesses and free enterprise and that damages confidence in American’s institutions. The relationship between business and government, in fact, might improve if there were more people from the business sector working in government. Inexperience with business is also evident from the regular lack of transparency or curiosity from regulators as they develop economic policies with potentially seismic consequences for the economy.
When I travel around the country, I experience a very different perspective on the street and at the local level — I see that many governors, mayors and city council members understand they are not facing big challenges alone. They stand shoulder to shoulder with our company, even when some of their constituents disagree or are skeptical about big banks. These government officials know they need partners who have the same stake in helping successful communities thrive and who care about building a prosperous future as much as they do. For example, in fewer than 10 years, Detroit saw one of the greatest turnarounds because of a vibrant collaboration between government and business. And businesses know they cannot succeed if individuals, families, towns and cities are not flourishing. We obviously don’t agree on everything, but there is a shared belief that we must work together. We can and should be full partners in developing solutions to our big problems.
The world is becoming more complex, more technologically competent and faster. Unfortunately the government simply is not built to innovate, compete and move quickly, as in the competitive business world. This may be the reason why government is becoming less effective. We need to take action on this because the loss of trust in government is damaging to society. We should be brutally honest about the staggering number of policies, systems and operations that are underperforming: Too many ineffective public schools do not give students the skills they need to land a well-paying job; we have over 25 million uninsured Americans, soaring healthcare costs and too many bad outcomes; we are unable to plan, permit and build infrastructure efficiently; our litigation system is capricious and wasteful; progress on immigration policies and reform is frustrating; lack of efficient mortgage markets and an affordable housing policy keep housing out of reach for many Americans; problems plague the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service; public universities don’t take responsibility for their costs and are often funded by excessive student lending; underinvestment in the electric grid results in high costs and unreliable service; highly inefficient U.S. merchant shipping and ports; and we have unfunded pension plans and no action on deficit spending, Social Security and Medicare. I’ll stop here. This should be unacceptable to all of us.
We should be more ambitious in striving for excellence in government. I acknowledge that some of the best and the brightest are in government and the military today. Yet we should return to a government that seeks out more of the best and the brightest people from every background, including the private sector, to benefit from their knowledge and experience. Government also needs to leverage the expertise of business to address problems that it cannot solve on its own. And to be fair, business could use its influence to do less to further its own interest and more to enhance the nation as a whole.
We need good government. And there are some things only governments can do, such as oversee the military and justice systems. And while most innovation happens through the private sector, there are certain types of foundational innovations that can only be advanced by the government, such as basic research that simply cannot be funded by business. The Democrats want the government to do even more and the Republicans even less — I think we should spend more time trying to do even better. But no one, not even my most liberal Democratic friends, thinks that sending the government another trillion a year would be a wise use of money.
Even America, the most prosperous nation on the planet with its vast resources, needs to focus its resources on the complex and difficult tasks ahead.
I hope to never read a book about How the West Was Lost, summarized as follows: The failure to save Ukraine and find peace in the Middle East led to more bickering among the allies and weakened military alliances. This accelerated a division within the Western world, splitting countries into different economic spheres and with each nation trying to protect its economy, trade and energy sources. America’s economy weakened, eventually leading to the loss of its reserve currency status. Besotted by populism and partisanship and crippled by bureaucracy and lack of willpower, America failed to focus on what it needed to do to lead and save the Western world. The enemy was within — we just didn’t see it in time.
Paraphrasing what Winston Churchill was thought to have said: America, after it had exhausted all other possibilities, would do the right thing.
What I want and hope to see is a book about How the West Was Won. As the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East dragged on and as the fears of the Western world mounted, America rose to the challenge as it had in other turbulent times in history. America coalesced with its allies to form the alliances necessary to keep the world safe for freedom and democracy.
I remain with a deep and abiding faith in the strength of the enduring values of America.
The heart and soul of the dynamism of America is human freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise (capitalism), and the freedom and empowerment brought to us by our democracy through the right to elect our leaders. Free people are at liberty to move around as they see fit, work as they see fit, dream as they see fit, and invest in themselves and in the pursuit of happiness as they see fit. This freedom that people enjoy, accompanied by the freedom of capital, is what drives the dynamism — economic and social — of this great country.
Our civil liberties depend upon the rule of law, property rights, including intellectual property, and restrictions on government encroachment upon these freedoms. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights secure our individual freedoms and reserve all rights to the individual other than those important but limited authorities given to the government.
The issue of individual rights is not all or none or freedom versus no freedom. There are, of course, terrible examples where individual rights were trampled upon, and the results were devastating — both for the individual and for the economy — in East Germany, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, to name a few. And there are many countries that protect individual rights and are on a spectrum closer to American values. Think of Europe, for example. But even in some countries that have some of these rights, a lack of dynamism — often due to bureaucracy, weak institutions and government, and corruption — is palpable and has clearly led to less innovation, lower growth and, in general, a lower standard of living.
Freedom must necessarily be joined with the principle of striving toward equal opportunity. Equal opportunity is what allows individuals to rise to the best of their ability — it also means unequal outcomes. Equal opportunity is the foundation for fairness and meritocracy. The fight for equality, which is a good moral goal, should not damage the rights of the individual and their liberties.
Democracy and freedom are cojoined — together, they make freedom more durable. Democracy also has a self-correcting element — every four years you get to throw out leadership if you don’t like them (which you do not see in autocracies). But we all know that democracy can be sloppy: Maintaining an effective democracy is hard work. Democracy fosters open debate and compromise, which lead to better decisions over time (whether in government or in business). Intelligence is effectively “crowdsourced” with constant feedback. Good public policy comes from good debate and analytics, guided by reason coupled with a firm understanding of what you would like the outcomes to be and complemented with an honest assessment of what is really happening.
Even democracies can become stagnant, bureaucratic and self-perpetuating. Good government does many admirable things, but admitting to mistakes is often not one of them. It takes civically engaged citizens and a strong free press to bring sunlight to issues and keep a nation strong.
Autocratic societies by their nature subjugate the individual to the state. By definition they are not meritocracies — they are more about “who you know,” and they exist to perpetuate the existing ruling class. Their decisions are based on a completely different calculation, and their decision-making process does not encourage and, therefore, benefit from open debate. Democracy means that it is immoral to subjugate individual freedoms to state actors other than to protect the existence of the nation itself.
There are values that many of us hold dear, such as religion, family and country. But none may be more important than the freedoms that allow us to choose to live our life as we see fit. We should do more to applaud the virtue and amazing power of our freedoms.
To fix problems, we must first acknowledge them. Despite decades of government programs and all the moralizing that surrounds them, we have not done a particularly good job lifting up our low-income fellow citizens. I may be wrong, but I do believe this is tearing at the social fabric of America and is among the root causes of the fraying of the American dream.
The gap between low-wage and well-paid workers has been growing dramatically. From 1979 to 2019, the wage growth of the top 10% was nearly 10 times that of the bottom 10% — which, basically, had not increased at all. The growth of low-income workers’ annualized real wages after the pandemic was, for the first time in decades, higher than the top 60%, but that’s not enough. The net worth for the bottom 25% of households is $20,800, and the net worth for the bottom 10% is essentially $0. This makes it increasingly difficult for low-wage workers to support their families. Of the 160 million Americans working today, approximately 40 million are paid less than $15 per hour.
Low-income individuals bear far greater burdens than the rest of us. Nearly 40% of Americans don’t have $400 in savings to deal with unexpected expenses, such as medical bills or car repairs, which leads to financial distress. More than 25 million Americans don’t have medical insurance at all; of these, one in five are in a family with income below the federal poverty level. People who live in low-income neighborhoods also tend to have worse health outcomes, including higher rates of mental health issues, depression and suicide, and a lower life expectancy — as many as 20 years. Finally, low-income Americans generally experience higher unemployment and more crime.
No one can claim that the promise of equal opportunity is being offered to all Americans through our education systems. Students in the lowest socioeconomic bracket are 50% less likely to attend college than those in the highest socioeconomic groups. Many inner city schools graduate under 50% of their students — and even those who graduate may not be well-prepared for the workforce. In addition, boys growing up in the bottom 10% of family income are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated. Those who do run afoul of our justice system generally do not get the second chance that many of them deserve. Their exclusion from the workforce is not only unfair to them but also results in an estimated $87 billion average annual cost to the economy.
Too many policies that are wrong — affecting housing and mortgage markets, healthcare, immigration, regulation, education and student lending, to name a few — are jeopardizing the opportunity for American citizens to succeed. The people who suffer the most, throughout all of this, are not high-income individuals. I strongly believe that these outcomes are destroying the concept of “fair” in America and are driving populism and diminishing, if not eliminating, trust — not only in government but in all our institutions. Simply put, the social needs of far too many of our citizens are not being met. We should never accept these outcomes — we must fix them.
There are two policy changes that I believe can have a dramatic effect on jobs, growth and equality — and they go a long way toward repairing the frayed American dream. Let’s start by treating all jobs with respect. Even starter jobs, which are the first rung on the ladder of opportunity, bring dignity and create better social outcomes in terms of health, higher household formation and lower crime. Of these two policy changes, one would better utilize existing resources, and the other would cost some money. But both would significantly change outcomes for low-income Americans.
The free one is so blindingly obvious that it’s almost embarrassing to propose. Our schools (high schools, community colleges and perhaps even four-year colleges) should take responsibility for outcomes — they should be judged on the quality and income level of the jobs that their graduates and even non-graduates attain. This means providing graduating students and other individuals with work skills (in fields such as advanced manufacturing, cyber, data science and technology, healthcare and so on) that will lead to better paying jobs. These schools should work with local businesses to replicate effective programs that are in place — because that is where the actual jobs are now. This would be good for growth and, as there are so many examples of successful programs, we already know what to do. With nearly 9 million job openings and just under 6 million unemployed workers in the United States, job skills training has never been needed more. We already spend a tremendous amount of money on education — just not the right way.
The second step is related to the first: Get more income to low-paid workers. While this one would cost money, it is to me a complete no-brainer since it is an expansion of an existing program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which many Democrats and Republicans already agree upon. Today, the EITC supplements low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly with children and people living in rural areas. For example, a single mother with two children earning $9 an hour (approximately $20,000 a year) could receive a tax credit of more than $6,000 at year-end. Workers without children receive a very small tax credit (96% of all EITC dollars were received by families with children). This should be dramatically expanded, including eliminating the child requirement from the calculation altogether. We should convert the EITC to make it more like a negative income payroll tax, paid monthly. Any tax credit income should not be offset by any other benefits these individuals already receive (we have to eliminate benefit “cliffs” that disincentivize work).
An increase in the EITC to a maximum of $10,000 would cost tens of billions a year, but I have little doubt that these policy changes would do more than anything else to lift up low-income families and their communities. Well-paying jobs have been shown to reduce crime, increase household formation, improve health and reduce addiction. Both of these policies would have the virtue of increasing the number of people in the workforce. I also have little doubt that this would add to GDP.
We should attack all our other problems as well, but these two policy changes alone would dramatically improve our low-income neighborhoods, broadly strengthen the economy and give more opportunity to deserving citizens. It would restore the American Dream for many.
It’s been 20 years since the Bank One-JPMorgan Chase merger — and it’s been an extraordinary journey. I can’t even begin to express my heartfelt appreciation and respect for the tremendous character and capabilities of the management team who got us through the good times and the bad times to where we stand today. And I recognize that we all stand on the shoulders of many others who came before us in building this exceptional company of ours.
I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the 300,000+ employees, and their families, of JPMorgan Chase. Through these annual letters, I hope shareholders and all readers have gained a deeper understanding of what it takes to be an “endgame winner” in a rapidly changing world. More important, I hope you are as proud of what we all have achieved — as a business, as a bank and as a community investor — as I am. Thank you for your partnership.
Finally, we sincerely hope to see the world on the path to peace and prosperity.
Jamie Dimon
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
April 8, 2024
Jamie Dimon
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Marianne Lake
CEO, Consumer & Community Banking
Jennifer Piepszak and Troy Rohrbaugh
Co-CEO's, Commercial & Investment Banking
Mary Callahan Erdoes
CEO, Asset and Wealth Management
Tim Berry
CEO, Corporate Responsibility
1. Certain wealth management clients were realigned from Asset & Wealth Management (AWM) to Consumer & Community Banking (CCB) in 4Q20. 2005 and 2013 amounts were not revised in connection with this realignment.
2. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Summary of Deposits survey per S&P Global Market Intelligence applies a $1 billion deposit cap to Chase and industry branches for market share. While many of our branches have more than $1 billion in retail deposits, applying a cap consistently to ourselves and the industry is critical to the integrity of this measurement. Includes all commercial banks, savings banks and savings institutions as defined by the FDIC.
3. Barlow Research Associates, Primary Bank Market Share Database. Rolling 8-quarter average of small businesses with revenues of more than $100,000 and less than $25 million. 2023 results include First Republic. Barlow’s 2005 Primary Bank Market Share is based on companies with revenues of more than $100,000 and less than $10 million.
4. Total payment volumes reflect Consumer and Small Business customers’ digital (ACH, BillPay, PayChase, Zelle, RTP, external transfers, digital wires), non-digital (non-digital wires, ATM, teller, checks) and credit and debit card payment outflows.
5. Digital non-card payment transactions includes outflows for ACH, BillPay, PayChase, Zelle, RTP, external transfers, and digital wires, excluding Credit and Debit card sales. 2005 is based on internal JPMorgan Chase estimates.
6. Represents general purpose credit card (GPCC) spend, which excludes private label and Commercial Card. Based on company filings and JPMorgan Chase estimates.
7. Represents GPCC loans outstanding, which excludes private label, American Express Company (AXP) Charge Card, Citi Retail Cards, and Commercial Card. Based on loans outstanding disclosures by peers and internal JPMorgan Chase estimates.
8. Represents users of all web and/or mobile platforms who have logged in within the past 90 days.
9. Represents users of all mobile platforms who have logged in within the past 90 days.
10. Based on 2023 sales volume and loans outstanding disclosures by peers (AXP, Bank of America Corporation, Capital One Financial Corporation, Citigroup Inc. and Discover Financial Services) and JPMorgan Chase estimates. Sales volume excludes private label and Commercial Card. AXP reflects the U.S. Consumer segment and JPMorgan Chase estimates for AXP’s U.S. small business sales. Loans outstanding exclude private label, AXP Charge Card, Citi Retail Cards and Commercial Card. Card loans outstanding market share has been revised to reflect a restatement to the 2022 reported total industry outstandings disclosed by Nilson, which impacts annual share growth in 2023.
11. Inside Mortgage Finance, Top Owned Mortgage Servicers as of 4Q23.
12. Experian Velocity data as of FY23. Reflects financing market share for new and used loan and lease units at franchised and independent dealers.
13. Coalition Greenwich Competitor Analytics (preliminary for FY23). Market share is based on JPMorgan Chase’s internal business structure and revenue. Ranks are based on Coalition Index Banks for Markets. 2006 rank is based on JPMorgan Chase analysis.
14. Dealogic as of January 2, 2024, excludes the impact of UBS/CS merger prior to the year of the acquisition (2023).
15. Client deposits and other third-party liabilities pertain to the Payments and Securities Services businesses.
16. Firmwide Payments revenue metrics exclude the net impact of equity investments; 2005 data represents Treasury Services firmwide revenue only. All other periods include Merchant Services revenue.
17. Coalition Greenwich Competitor Analytics (preliminary for FY23) reflects global firmwide Treasury Services business (CIB and CB). Market share is based on JPMorgan Chase’s internal business structure, footprint and revenue. Ranks are based on Coalition Index Banks for Treasury Services.
18. Institutional Investor.
19. Based on third-party data.
20. The Market Share number represents US dollar payment instructions for direct payments and credit transfers processed over Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (“SWIFT”) in the countries where J.P. Morgan has sales coverage.
21. Nilson, Full Year 2023.
22. Coalition Greenwich FY23 Competitor Analytics (preliminary). Rank is based JPMorgan Chase’s internal business structure and revenue and Coalition Index Banks for Securities Services.
23. Data in 2005 column is as of 12/31/2006.
24. New relationships (gross) exclude impact of First Republic acquisition.
25. Includes gross revenues earned by the Firm that are subject to a revenue sharing arrangement between CB and the CIB for Investment Banking and Markets’ products sold to CB clients. This includes revenue related to fixed income and equity markets products.
26. S&P Global Market Intelligence as of December 31, 2023.
27. London Stock Exchange Group, FY23.
28. Aligns with the affordable housing component of the Firm’s $30 billion racial equity commitment.
29. Percentage of active mutual fund and active ETF assets under management in funds ranked in the 1st or 2nd quartile (one, three and five years): All quartile rankings, the assigned peer categories and the asset values used to derive these rankings are sourced from the fund rating providers. Quartile rankings are based on the net-of-fee absolute return of each fund. Where applicable, the fund rating providers redenominate asset values into U.S. dollars. The percentage of AUM is based on fund performance and associated peer rankings at the share class level for U.S.-domiciled funds, at a “primary share class” level to represent the quartile ranking for U.K., Luxembourg and Hong Kong SAR funds and at the fund level for all other funds. The performance data may have been different if all share classes had been included. Past performance is not indicative of future results. “Primary share class” means the C share class for European funds and Acc share class for Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan funds. If these share classes are not available, the oldest share class is used as the primary share class. Due to a methodology change effective September 30, 2023, prior results include all long-term mutual fund assets and exclude active ETF assets.
30. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the Firm realigned certain wealth management clients from AWM to CCB. Prior-period amounts have been revised to conform with the current presentation.
31. Traditional assets includes Equity, Fixed Income, Multi-Asset and Liquidity AUM Brokerage, Administration and Custody assets under supervision.
32. AUM only for 2005. Prior period amounts have been restated to include changes in product categorization.
33. Source: Euromoney.
34. Percentage of active mutual fund and active ETF assets under management in funds rated 4- or 5-star: Mutual fund rating services rank funds based on their risk adjusted performance over various periods. A 5-star rating is the best rating and represents the top 10% of industry-wide ranked funds. A 4-star rating represents the next 22.5% of industry-wide ranked funds. A 3-star rating represents the next 35% of industry-wide ranked funds. A 2-star rating represents the next 22.5% of industry-wide ranked funds. A 1-star rating is the worst rating and represents the bottom 10% of industrywide ranked funds. An overall Morningstar rating is derived from a weighted average of the performance associated with a fund’s three-, five and ten- year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. For U.S.- domiciled funds, separate star ratings are provided at the individual share class level. The Nomura “star rating” is based on three-year risk-adjusted performance only. Funds with fewer than three years of history are not rated and hence excluded from these rankings. All ratings, the assigned peer categories and the asset values used to derive these rankings are sourced from the applicable fund rating provider. Where applicable, the fund rating providers redenominate asset values into U.S. dollars. The percentage of AUM is based on star ratings at the share class level for U.S.-domiciled funds, and at a “primary share class” level to represent the star rating of all other funds, except for Japan, for which Nomura provides ratings at the fund level. The performance data may have been different if all share classes had been included. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
35. Source: Company filings and JPMorgan Chase estimates. Rankings reflect publicly traded peer group as follows: Allianz, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, DWS, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Invesco, Morgan Stanley, State Street, T. Rowe Price and UBS. JPMorgan Chase ranking reflects Asset & Wealth Management client assets, U.S. Wealth Management investments and new-to-firm Chase Private Client deposits.
36. Source: iMoneynet.
37. Represents AUM in a strategy with at least one listed female and/or diverse portfolio manager. “Diverse” defined as U.S. ethnic minority.
1. Bank of America Corporation (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wells Fargo & Company (WFC).
2. Managed overhead ratio = total noninterest expense/managed revenue; revenue for GS and MS is reflected on a reported basis.
3. Best-in-class peer overhead ratio represents the comparable business segments of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) peers: Capital One Domestic Card and Consumer Banking (COF-DC & CB), Bank of America Global Banking and Global Markets (BAC-GB & GM), Fifth Third Bank (FITB), Northern Trust Wealth Management (NTRS-WM) and Allianz Group (ALLIANZ-AM).
4. Best-in-class all banks ROTCE represents implied net income minus preferred stock dividends of the comparable business segments of JPM peers, when available, or of JPM peers on a firmwide basis when there is no comparable business segment: Bank of America Consumer Banking (BAC-CB), Bank of America Global Banking and Global Markets (BAC-GB & GM), Wells Fargo & Company Commercial Banking (WFC-CB) and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management & Investment Management (MS-WM & IM).
5. Best-in-class GSIB ROTCE represents implied net income minus preferred stock dividends of the comparable business segments of JPM GSIB peers, when available, or of JPM GSIB peers on a firmwide basis when there is no comparable business segment: Bank of America Consumer Banking (BAC-CB), Bank of America Global Banking and Global Markets (BAC-GB & GM), Wells Fargo & Company Commercial Banking (WFC-CB) and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management & Investment Management (MS-WM & IM). WFC-CB is the only GSIB peer to disclose a comparable business segment to Commercial Banking.
6. Given comparisons are at the business segment level, where available; allocation methodologies across peers may be inconsistent with JPM’s.
1. Tangible common equity 2005-2007 reflects common stockholders’ equity less goodwill and other intangible assets.
2. Basel III Transitional rules became effective on January 1, 2014; prior-period CET1 data is based on Basel I rules. As of December 31, 2014, the ratios represent the lower of the Standardized or Advanced approach calculated under the Basel III Fully Phased-In basis.
3. Includes eligible High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) as defined in the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) rule and unencumbered marketable securities, such as equity and debt securities, that the Firm believes would be available to raise liquidity including excess eligible HQLA securities at JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. that are not transferable to nonbank affiliates; for December 31, 2023 and 2022, the balance includes eligible end-of-period HQLA as defined in the LCR rule, issued December 19, 2016. For December 31, 2017–2021, the balance includes average eligible HQLA. Periods prior to 2017 represent period-end balances. December 31, 2016 and 2015 balances are under the initial U.S. rule approved on September 3, 2014. The December 31, 2014 amount is estimated prior to the effective date of the initial rule, and under the Basel III liquidity coverage ratio (Basel III LCR) for December 31, 2013.
4. 2005-2012 reflect cash and cash due from banks and investment securities.
5. Capital returned to common stockholders includes common dividends and net repurchases.
1. 2007 and 2010 sourced from WorldBank.org annual GDP publication. 2023 is calculated using JPM Research forecasts. Figures are represented in 2015 prices.
2. Consists of cash assets and Treasury and agency securities.
3. 2023 figure is as of 3Q23.
4. Top 50 fund AUM data per Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute (SWFI).
5. Loans held by nonbank entities per the FRB Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States.
6. U.S. money market fund investment holdings of securities issued by entities worldwide.
7. Methodology updated in 2022, previous years have been restated.
8. NYSENYSE + NASDAQ; excludes investment funds, ETF’s unit trusts and companies whose business goal is to hold shares of other listed companies; a company with several classes of shares is only counted once.
9. Inside Mortgage Finance and JPMorgan Chase internal data; consists of Top 50 Originators (Top 40 for 2007).
10. Preqin, Dealogic, JPM Credit Research.
