JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon told CNBC that most areas of the economy are “flashing green.” Jim Cramer and CNBC’s Steve Liesman & Diana Olick offer their reactions.
Video and COMPUTER GENERATED transcript below:
just a moment ago on streetsigns, brian sat down for an exclusive interview with j.p. morgan jamie dimon. i felt like he said a lot of positive things, how he feels about the housing market. we have steveiesman and jimcramer here and diana olick. what did you think about with what jamie said with regard to the economy? well, when people come on cnbc, people talk about their book. i thought they were talking their book. the reason why thas okay is jamie dimon has a very, very big book. you’ve got to ask yourself, is jamie dimon telling us what he says about himself. i think jamie dimon has a huge disincentive to say things are better than they are. they have done relatively better than the rest of the group.he doesn’t have to be that much further ahead. i hope when he’s talking and i believe when he’s talking that he’s giving us a glimpse of what his book is showing him and i think that’s a window on the economy. the only thing slightly wrong about that book is jamie might have a slice of the american economy that is richer than the average. that may be a piece of that book.overall when his book is doing well — it just undermines your own credibility. what did you think about what he had to say today? i think he’s more optimistic on the commercial side. you see these great american companies doing well. i thought he was very interesting when he said, it’s not that easy to get a loan. i back at jpmorgan. it’s not that easy to get a loan. right.and he said the demand is quite high. i’ve been going through a re-fi process t was way harder to get the re-fi than the original loan because credit standards have tightened so much. diana, this is really up your alley. it was interesting to make noapologies that a lot of customers are complaining that it takes so long to get alone and it’s harder to get a loan than before.we’ve gone back to, quote, old-fashion underwriting and i think that is what you’ll see going forward with re-fis. you see a lot of people are not able to benefit from that and it’s because a lot of tighter underwriting. people not able to get the loans like before. he makes no apology about that and he thinks it’s a good thing. is it tight or is it normal? is the baseline the go go double odds or is the baseline the long history of 80/20? no, i think it’s tighter right now. it’s far tighter than it was historically.forget the years of the crazy credit lending. we are much tighter than historically because you’re expected to have a higher credit score. fha, jpmorgan does a lot of federal loans. not necessarily downpayments but credit. i’ll take 80/20. i couldn’t get 80/20. what about the news here? you were turned down by a loan at jpmorgan? they had a very bad rate versus what i managed to get. they would like me to put up more money even though i have a 1% — you have a few dollars in the bank? they weren’t competitive. mandy with her maxed out credit cards, that’s a different thing. not even. even. in fact, if i do max them out i’m hoping that you as a consumer have a beautiful ship so let’s make use of it. it’s called the uss intrepid and by the way, you have a terrible record with bets. i would never make a betjamie dimon. but, very candid interview, brian? listen, i had to buy herb greenberg dinner last night. thanks for the invite. we had a romance. we had a lovely dinner together. tons after steel and iron together. if i repeat something that you already said, i apologize. but, jim, i want to ask you, listen, he sounded to me — he’s not going to say, buy the s&p. he sounds pretty bullish on the u.s. stock market. i agree with him. it seems ironic to me that i tried to get a mortgage from jpmorgan and didn’t get a good rate. i made me feel like i want to be bullish. i have u.s. bancorp on tonight. i don’t know if they share that level of un th yachl for the economy. why wouldn’t they? these guys have a visibility. i think also the housing market has been very spotty.in some regions it’s better, some regions it’s worse. as he said, i see a bunch of green lights but he wasn’t able to say that it’s all recovered. true. the threat of europe being behind this, at least to jump in now. go ahead. if you talked about this, myapologies. when we talked about how he said the three and four handles that the fed may change course, what i like about that is you have arguably the most powerful man on wall street saying, just because the fed has said somethinand put it in print doesn’t mean it’s going to be the rule of fed law. he said the fed could change its mind. so how much do we have to read into that being hard and fast? he said the same thingyesterday. i hope our bets are more optimistic in which case we will change our forecast. i hope there are no illusions. if the numbers change, the fed is going to change. i’ve got that. i guess the broader point i was trying to makis, how much do we listen to what the fed has to say about interest rates or should investors simply make their own assumptions because wall street, as jamie said, is going to do what it wants any way? very simple, brian. you can sleep with what the fed told you with one eye opened. jim? i don’t like to sleep at all. anyone on twitter knows that. i went to sleep for a couple hours last night, i feel okay today. it’s going to interpret how it wants to interpret. we’ve got the stress test behind us. he’s making a lot of positives.fixed income investors or traders are interpreting the feddifferently from how being quit tea investors are. i fear 1937 the way the fed does. taxes go up big, you might not have such a –we went up from 180 to 220 and it’s still 220. we’re not talking about like having 100-pound ball at the end of the economy.how about a 1% rate and by this point it was going belly up?that’s huge. europe may in fact — whether or not it is — we didn’t talk about it. we t america. that great in america first. i want to ask the question i tried to get to you earlier with regards to europe. jamie dimon says it’s been put to bed at least for now.do you agree? i think it’s been put to bed at least for now. what is important is we know how to put it to bed again. why jean-claude trichet would not learn that lesson, if there’s a liquidity problem, flood it with liquidity and solve the problem. steve, thank you all for playing. and, ron, who has done a fabulous job, back over to you for the finale. thank you, mandy. the nbc family has done it. the company has done it. the veterans, men and women here all over the world, all over america, we want to thank you for your hard work and service. we are going to get people service. it’s been a successful jobs fair. i’ve told jamie dimon i will take him for a bloomin onion if i lose my dinner bet.the national cuisine of australia. and i’m going to be invited to that one. thank you very much.
