JPMorgan shares surged 7.9% to $96.58 after Dimon made the remarks.
The context for the question: Dimon bought $26 million in shares of JPMorgan in February 2016, a confidence-boosting move that later proved to be close to the bottom of the stock market at the time.
“I’m not trying to predict the bottom,” Dimon said, adding that “you cannot be a bank and be immune to what goes on in the world out there.” JPMorgan has said that its earnings, compared with a record in 2019, would take a hit in 2020 as loan losses climbed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Dimon added that he was hopeful that his “base case” for the economy would occur, which would include improving unemployment and other metrics in the second half of the year after hitting almost 20% in the second quarter.
“I give it some pretty good odds,” Dimon said. “The government has been very responsive, the Federal Reserve has been very responsive. Large companies have a huge wherewithal, hopefully we’ll keep the small ones alive long enough that most of them get back into business.”