JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeremy Barnum: I appreciate the balance. Now in all seriousness, we’ve always been pretty clear right that our spending is through-the-cycles funding, based on through this cycle investment, through-the-cycle spending based on our through-the-cycle view of the earnings generating power of the company and the goal to produce the right returns. So broadly speaking, NII tends to flow straight-through to the bottom-line, both fund is growing up, and by the way, when it’s going down too and we’ve been through those moments, as you will remember. So, whether or not there are opportunities to deploy some more dollars into marketing and stuff like that, we have actually looked at that recently. I don’t see that being a meaningful item this year, which is part of why we have not revised the expense guidance so far. But this is about investing through-the-cycle and being honest and disciplined about which revenue items flow, carried expense loading and which item don’t.

Mike Mayo: And then last quick follow-up.

Jamie Dimon: I think we’re kind of running as fast as we can. So you actually set down the risk credit compliance, audit market bankers recruiter trainers — this is it. We’re a full effort right now. And we want to make sure we get things right and get things thoughtful and careful. So it’s not just the money, it’s the people and how many things can change all the once and add to all at once.

Mike Mayo: And then one quick follow-up to that. Your efficiency ratio this quarter is the lowest we’ve seen in a long, long-time. I guess you’re saying don’t extrapolate this efficiency ratio because NII will come down at some point, but when you just simply look at you benchmark yourself against the low-cost providers. Where do you think, you’re there now and where it can you still go because extrapolate this quarter you’re getting closer?

Jeremy Barnum: Yes. I mean, you or yourself right? You definitely can’t extrapolate the current numbers, but. I think more broadly on benefiting our benchmarking ourselves too low-cost providers that sort of speaks to an area that you’ve been interested in for a long-time, which is all of the investment that we’re doing in technology to improve generally scalability and get more of our cost base to be variable versus fixed. In terms of how we respond to volumes that’s a big part of the reason that we’re doing the investments that we’re doing and modernization and cloud and AI and all that type of stuff that we’re talking about, so. I think we feel really good about our efficiency as a company, but there definitely is room for improvement.

Mike Mayo: All right. Thank you.

Operator: Next we’ll go to the line of Steven Chubak from Wolfe Research. You may proceed.

Steve Chubak: Hi, thanks for taking the question and apologies for the technical issues earlier. Wanted to ask on the deposit outlook, just with signs at recent liquidity drawdown has come predominantly out of our versus industry deposits. I just wanted to get your thoughts on what expectations you have for deposit growth in the second-half, both for you and even the broader industry, especially as treasury issuance really begins to ramp-in earnest. Yes, good question, Steve if. So, let me say a couple things about this. So obviously our deposit numbers have bounced around a little bit as a function of some of the turmoil that we saw in regional banks, as well as obviously the public transaction, but now if you look at our kind of end-of-period deposits this quarter and project forward.

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