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- Jamie Dimon sees higher recession odds after March's banking turmoil.
- The JPMorgan chief says the US economy faces headwinds from higher inflation, Fed tightening, and war in Ukraine.
- Dimon broke down why markets are better positioned than during the Great Financial Crisis.
Jamie Dimon says the odds of a recession have risen after last month's bout of turmoil in the banking sector.
Although a recession is not inevitable, the JPMorgan Chase CEO says the slew of bank failures have only worsened already shaky economic conditions.
"It's just another weight on the scale," Dimon said in an interview with CNN. "We are seeing people reduce lending a little bit, cut back a little bit, [and] pull back ... It won't necessarily force [a] recession, but it is recessionary."
The current banking crisis is not over yet, Dimon says, adding that the industry will feel repercussions for years to come.
Still, Dimon says the current situation is very different from the Great Financial Crisis and not nearly as severe. The crisis in 2008 impacted the world's largest banks, whereas the problems in March were concentrated among mid-sized regional lenders.
A handful of specialists banks failed in March, sending shockwaves through financial markets. Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Silvergate all failed. In Europe, UBS acquired Credit Suisse in a deal brokered by Swiss regulators to stave off a crisis of confidence it the country's banking system.
Dimon says markets are bracing themselves for three major economic risks: higher inflation, quantitative tightening, and Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
"Those are pretty strong things," Dimon added. "If you look at history since World War II, we've not [had t0] face [conditions] like that."
However, Dimon remains optimistic about the US economy long-term.
In his annual letter to shareholders this week, the chief executive said: "We've had 10 years of home and stock price appreciation, and even if we go into a recession, consumers would enter it in far better shape than during the great financial crisis."