Just hopped off the earnings media call with JPMorgan (JPM) CFO Jeremy Barnum (hat tip to Yahoo Finance banking reporter David Hollerith for getting his question taken before mine).
Here was our exchange:
Me: We got some cautious results from various consumer companies this week, such as PepsiCo (PEP), with them calling out some consumer caution. Is there anything you’re seeing in your debit or credit data that would suggest consumers are pulling back, whether because of inflation or election concerns?
Barnum: Short answer is no. So we’ve made a couple of these points over time, but I’ll just reiterate them here. So our broad take is that the consumer spending in real terms is sort of flattish. So I’m seeing booming spending growth, but we’re also not seeing, you know, any meaningful weakness there. Like with this data, you can always take a magnifying glass to it and try to go deep, and one of the things that we’ve seen a little bit in the spending patterns in the lower income segments, you are starting to see a little bit of evidence, some rotation of spending out of discretionary and nondiscretionary, which is traditionally, for obvious reasons, … understood to be a little bit of a sign of weakness.
But in a world where the unemployment rate is 4.1% and GDP growth is slowing a little bit, the data that we’re seeing on the consumer side is entirely consistent with that economic environment. And the big picture backdrop, whether it’s spending or charge-offs or delinquency rates, cash buffers, etc., is still consistent with quite a healthy consumer. You know, it’s not a concern at this point.
Of note: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was interestingly not on the call per the usual. We were told it was due to a travel conflict, as he was flying back from an event in Germany. There is nothing more to read into it, Barnum said in response to a reporter’s question on Dimon’s absence.