J.P. Morgan chief Jamie Dimon on Tuesday praised the strength of the U.S. consumer following the largest U.S. bank's strong quarterly earnings report.
"We continue to see positive momentum with the U.S. consumer — healthy confidence levels, solid job creation and rising wages — which are reflected in our Consumer & Community Banking results," Dimon said in the earnings statement. "Double-digit growth in credit card sales and merchant processing volumes reflected healthy consumer spending and drove 8% growth in credit card loans, while mortgage and auto originations showed solid improvement, and we continued to attract new deposits, up 3%."
J.P. Morgan reported better-than-expected second-quarter results before the bell, largely attributed to strong consumer spending. The bank posted earnings per share of $2.82 on revenue of $29.57 billion. Wall Street expected earnings per share of $2.50 on revenue of $28.9 billion, according to Refinitiv. The shares traded 1.7% lower in Tuesday's premarket on the bank's worse-than-expected forecast for net interest income.
Double-digit growth in credit card sales and merchant processing further demonstrated that U.S. consumer spending is healthy. Credit card sales volume rose 11% this quarter and merchant processing volume increased 12%, the bank said.
Dimon was less optimistic about the global economy but wasn't outright bearish either.
"It's not that bad," Dimon said of the current macro environment. "Uncertainty is a constant...uncertain going forward and geopolitical tensions is kind of a constant," said Dimon on a call with media.
Dimon said global growth has been averaging around 3% but expects it to be around 2.5% this year.
"The business sentiment is a little bit worse mostly probably driven by the trade war," Dimon said.
— with reporting from Hugh Son and Wilfred Frost.