Jamie Dimon’s Annual Letter Is A Warning

Every year, Jamie Dimon drops his annual shareholder letter, and every year the market treats it somewhere between gospel and carefully worded damage control.

This year is no different, but what’s interesting is not just what he says, it’s where he hedges, where he softens the language, and where I’d bet he’s clearly more concerned than he lets on.

You can read Dimon’s full letter here. I’ve summarized key points and my thoughts.

Let’s start with the headline claim that the U.S. economy is “resilient.” I don’t buy that, not anymore. Yes, consumers are still spending and businesses are still “healthy,” but that’s backward looking resilience, not forward looking strength.

The data is starting to crack at the margins. You’re seeing it in softer consumption, rising delinquencies, a cooling labor market, and an increasing reliance on credit just to sustain spending.

Credit card data looks increasingly fragile, with total balances now above $1.3 trillion and average borrowers carrying around $6,500 to $6,800 while struggling to pay it down. More importantly, this debt is no longer driven by discretionary spending but by essentials like food, housing, and utilities, meaning households are using credit as a lifeline, not a convenience.

With high interest rates keeping balances sticky and delinquencies rising, this isn’t a sign of resilience, it’s a late cycle warning that consumers are quietly running out of room.

This is how slowdowns actually begin. Not with a collapse, but with a slow drift lower that suddenly accelerates. So when Dimon says resilient, what I hear is late cycle. But then again, look at this cuddly photo that was included with Dimon’s letter. He’s standing there as if to say, like Dark Helmet posing as a King Roland hologram in the sands of Vega in Spaceballs, “would I lie?”

On AI however he’s absolutely right, and if anything he’s understating it. In my opinion, the reality is that this is happening much faster than prior technological revolutions because it is being layered onto existing infrastructure rather than requiring entirely new systems to be built.

Electricity and the internet needed decades. AI is scaling in years. That’s exactly why I’ve been so focused on how to own it properly. Most investors chase the obvious names, but the real value is being created at the infrastructure and platform layer. That’s why I laid out just days ago how to get exposure to systems like ChatGPT and Anthropic, because those are the leverage points. Dimon is right that we don’t yet know the ultimate winners, but we absolutely know where the value is concentrating.

His comments critical of New York are probably the most straightforward part of the letter, and honestly, it’s just reality. As I’ve written, New York City’s obsession with taxation will not only crush the middle and lower class of the city, they will drive out businesses and are failing already in other jurisdictions.

Dimon notes that New York City remains one of the...(READ THIS FULL ARTICLE 100% FREE HERE).

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