The heads of three of the country’s biggest banks see a US economy still powered by businesses and a remarkably strong American consumer.
But they also gave some cautionary notes.
The CEOs of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), and Wells Fargo (WFC) said they still see another strong quarter for their Wall Street and Main Street franchises on Wednesday during Bernstein’s Strategic Decisions Conference in New York.
“Things are still extremely, extremely strong,” Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf said. Although consumer sentiment is sitting at a record low, “consumer spend is actually even stronger than it was a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago.”
“Oil [prices] being higher for longer,” can change that,” he added, noting that the price of oil is already set to be “higher than people probably initially expected.”
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said, “People are spending money, and that’s because, frankly, they’re employed.” Higher consumer spending so far this month isn’t coming at the expense of more loan delinquencies either, he added.
Business clients “say they’re not growing inventories … as much as they might otherwise do if they had more confidence in what the next six months were going to look like,” Scharf noted. But they are “still financially very, very strong.”
Bank of America Global Research recently lowered its forecast for US economic growth in 2026 to 2.2%, down from the mid-2% pace it projected at the beginning of the year. But Moynihan said the growth projection is “reasonably strong” compared to the last “15, 20 years.”
Small and medium-size businesses are “trying to make sure they’re grounded” after the onset of the Iran war and the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs this spring. “Still, they’re borrowing a little more,” Moynihan added.
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Wall Street remains the major growth story for these lending giants, with each CEO saying their banks are poised to deliver sizable revenue increases from trading and dealmaking.
The upbeat Wall Street picture comes as all three banks are involved in taking public Elon Musk’s monster rocket company, SpaceX (SPAX.PVT). With potential OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) IPOs on the horizon, this could put 2026 at record IPO pace — but the window for that kind of activity can “can close tomorrow,” based on market conditions, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said.
Meanwhile, the less predictable trading divisions continue to churn out higher fees, each of the CEOs acknowledged.
