The deals are flowing, bankers are busy, sponsors are spending. The clients aren’t hesitating.
“It’s gung-ho, folks,” Jamie Dimon told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on May 27. Then came the footnote that should make every CFO, fund manager, and investor think twice.
“There’s a lot of exuberance out there,” Dimon continued. “But it was in 1972, 1986, 2000, 2007. That doesn’t give me comfort.”
Four years, and four peaks. Four disasters waiting just around the corner from the party.
Nobody has a better real-time read on the global economy than the chairman and CEO of JPMorganChase, the largest bank in the United States with nearly $5 trillion in assets. When Dimon says M&A is tracking toward the best year in recent memory, that equity capital markets activity (i.e., initial public offerings) is set to be “huge,” and that corporate clients are broadly eager to transact, he’s watching the flow of money, deals and risk appetite from his perch as the mayor of Wall Street.
