By Nupur Anand and Manya Saini
NEW YORK, May 27 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase’s expenses for this year could be $1 billion higher than earlier estimates, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said on Wednesday.
The bank raised its full-year 2026 expense forecast to about $106 billion from $105 billion earlier, citing stronger business performance.
Its shares were last down 2.5% in morning trading.
Stephan Biggar at Argus Research said that any increase in expenses worries the market. “The bank has also been warning that it has been overearning which could also cause a pause in the market,” he added.
JPMorgan Chase’s investment banking fees could rise 10% or more in the second quarter, Dimon told an investor conference on Wednesday, adding that a lot of “big deals” were being discussed.
Dealmaking on Wall Street has regained momentum in 2026 as corporate confidence remains steady amid a resilient U.S. economy, easing financing conditions and rising boardroom appetite for acquisitions and large capital raises.
Though the conflict in the Middle East and market turmoil driven by concerns that AI could disrupt legacy software businesses injected some caution earlier this year, top banking executives have continued to point to healthy deal pipelines and strong client engagement.
“ECM (Equity Capital Markets) is going to be huge this year,” Dimon said at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York. “I think sponsors are busy. Companies are busy. There’s a lot of exuberance out there.”
The largest U.S. lender’s markets business, which includes its trading operations, is also on track to grow 11% in the current quarter and could perform “a little better” than that forecast, he added.
GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Several large banks have signaled openness to strengthening their competitive positions through acquisitions, expanding technology capabilities and gaining scale in fast-growing areas such as wealth management and payments.
JPMorgan Chase has completed several large acquisitions over the years and successfully integrated those businesses. Most notably, in 2023, it agreed to buy First Republic Bank in a deal that resolved the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.
“Looking at acquisitions is important and I do think there might be opportunities and so we are on the lookout,” Dimon said.
“I do think there might be in the next couple of years a chance to put $10 to $20 billion to buying something.”
(Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Franklin Paul)
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