CEO of JPMorgan Jamie Dimon released a shareholders letter highlighting the state of the bank before the coronavirus outbreak, and how the organization plans to move forward while the economy shifts.

Video Transcript

- --said JP Morgan Chase right now, up some 5%, taking part in this rally. And today, we got JP Morgan's chief, Jamie Dimon, out with his annual letter to shareholders.

And first of all, good to see Jamie Dimon back. He had his own health scare unrelated to the coronavirus. But he was sidelined by a heart issue. And so he's back.

Myles, he has this letter. It's always a good read. I guess the take away for me, or the headline when I first read it, was this idea that we could have a bad recession. Am I dwelling on the negative part of the note? Is there something else?

MYLES UDLAND: No. I mean, I think that's kind of the message. And you know, if you look at where Dimon goes, and he often goes into public policy as he has the last couple of years, obviously the public policy issue of the day is what he writes about here, which is the other side of this is this whole section on how we get back to work. And I think that what he's outlining here is that there is no plan here in the US on the other side of this.

And so I think it's constructive to have these conversations about-- not constructive-- it's necessary. We have no idea what we're going to do when the curve not only flattens but actually starts declining, and we get fewer cases, and deaths start dropping, and it's clear that social distancing-- it's clear right now that social distancing works. But in six weeks, when we can start to appreciate the full measure of those actions, what next?

So Dimon is outlining what some other countries-- UK and Germany specifically-- have mentioned as, you know, the antibody tests and kind of regular testing of everybody who was in contact with someone, or just people who are moving outside their home for the first time in quite a while.

But I think that his conversation about how to get back to work safely, and then what government policy, what government structures look like on the other side of this sort of highlights how little capacity there is for managing, I think, where we want to be in June and July.

And so that's why he kind of starts the first part of it saying this is going to be about recession. He says, we're not going to be immune from this impact, certainly, as the largest money center bank in the country. And then the back half, the reason why that first half is the way it is is because the back half is sort of left with his best hopes and ideas, yet, really, nothing concrete for anyone to point to to say, here's how it's going to go.

- It is. It's still amazing to me how quickly we've gone from just talking about whether or not we were going to have a recession to now having the top banker in the country saying it's a bad recession, just as a matter of fact. It shows how quickly this has all come about.