JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon again cautioned that a credit market downturn could be worse than expected, even after his firm and Wall Street rivals posted a banner quarter in which loan portfolios held up.
In private credit specifically, the fact that there are more than 1,000 firms in the space probably means not all of them will fare well when the cycle turns, Dimon said Tuesday at a Norges Bank Investment Management conference.
Some firms “may be brilliant, but I guarantee you not all 1,000 of them are,” Dimon said. “So in my view, because of that and the underwriting standards, we haven’t had a credit recession in so long, so when we have one it will be worse than people think.”
“It won’t be terrible, it’ll just be worse than people think in private credit,” he added. “That may be true for some banks too, by the way.”
As fears over the $1.8 trillion private credit market have bubbled in recent months, Dimon has been raising alarms about some issues. He said in his annual letter released earlier this month that private credit “probably does not” pose a systemic risk, a view he reiterated Tuesday.
The bank hasn’t been shying away from the space though. The company’s asset manager is talking with institutional investors to raise several billion dollars for a private credit strategy that will be sourced by JPMorgan’s commercial bankers.
Dimon also cautioned that geopolitical tensions such as the Iran war are boosting price pressures, while adding that he’s not worried about inflation currently. He’s previously said that inflation risks being a “skunk” at the party.
“My view is that there’s a lot of inflationary things out there including the Iran war, the remilitarization of the world, the infrastructure needs of the world and our deficits,” Dimon said.
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Published on April 28, 2026