I’ve been studying Jamie Dimon’s letter to JPMorgan Chase shareholders over the past two days (it’s lengthy) and needed to test in right here to share this bit about what occurred with the banking system this spring. He’s uniquely positioned to share a viewpoint on it…

The latest failures of Silicon Valley Financial institution (SVB) in america and Credit score Suisse in Europe, and the associated stress within the banking system, underscore that merely satisfying regulatory necessities is just not ample. Dangers are ample, and managing these dangers requires fixed and vigilant scrutiny because the world evolves. Relating to the present disruption within the U.S. banking system, a lot of the dangers had been hiding in plain sight. Rate of interest publicity, the honest worth of held-to-maturity (HTM) portfolios and the quantity of SVB’s uninsured deposits had been at all times recognized – each to regulators and {the marketplace}. The unknown threat was that SVB’s over 35,000 company shoppers – and exercise inside them – had been managed by a small variety of enterprise capital corporations and moved their deposits in lockstep. It’s unlikely that any latest change in regulatory necessities would have made a distinction in what adopted. As a substitute, the latest speedy rise of rates of interest positioned heightened concentrate on the potential for speedy deterioration of the honest worth of HTM portfolios and, on this case, the shortage of stickiness of sure uninsured deposits. Mockingly, banks had been incented to personal very protected authorities securities as a result of they had been thought-about extremely liquid by regulators and carried very low capital necessities. Even worse, the stress testing primarily based on the state of affairs devised by the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) by no means included rates of interest at increased ranges. This isn’t to absolve financial institution administration – it’s simply to clarify that this wasn’t the best hour for a lot of gamers. All of those colliding components turned critically necessary when {the marketplace}, ranking companies and depositors centered on them.

The daring is him, not me.

Within the monetary system, dangers nearly at all times do conceal in plain sight – as a result of they’re solely potential dangers throughout nearly all of the time. Once they go from being potential dangers to precise dangers it may be sudden and the ramifications will not be at all times apparent, even in the event you’re centered on them otherwise you’re watching in real-time.

The individuality of the issues at SVB have been written about advert nauseum. Monetary shares fell nearly 10% in March and the Banks business group is down 19%. If Jaime is true this might signify a possibility for traders who wish to place the wager that latest fears have been overblown. My buddy Brian Belski at BMO put out a be aware this morning suggesting precisely that – he notes that 44% of economic sector shares within the S&P 500 are ranked as being top quality which is above the historic common. Additional, monetary sector shares are anticipated to develop their dividends by 9% over the subsequent 12 months, the second highest of all sectors. Value contemplating.

Learn the remainder of the letter from Ser Jaime right here:

JPM Annual Report 2023