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Jamie Dimon will on Monday seek to persuade investors in JPMorgan Chase that spending $2bn a week is necessary to drive the bank’s future growth, having previously told shareholders to “trust him” that the investment would pay off.
The largest US bank by assets will host analysts and investors at a slimmed-down version of its traditional annual investor day, compressed into two hours of presentations after markets close.
The update comes two months after the bank unveiled higher than expected plans for spending in 2026, warning investors to brace for a 10 per cent increase to $105bn even as its domestic rivals presented more modest programmes.
“There hasn’t really been a competitive response,” said Jason Goldberg, banking research analyst at Barclays. “No other bank has come out and said, we’ve got to do this also.”
JPMorgan declined to comment. The bank told attendees on Sunday that it planned to move forward with the in-person event as scheduled despite a snowstorm in New York, but that it would share updates should conditions change.
JPMorgan has been able to justify its spending plans — which span recruitment, new branches, technology, marketing and real estate costs — because of its profitability. The bank generated more than $1bn a week in profits in 2024 and 2025.
Dimon, who has led JPMorgan since 2006, insists that the bank faces competition on multiple fronts, including from traditional banks, fintechs such as Stripe and tech giants including Apple.
He told investors in January that he was “not going to try to meet some expense target, and then 10 years from now you’ll be asking us the question how did JPMorgan get left behind”.
But Dimon has been cagey about what details he will share with investors. He has said that he owed shareholders “as much information as we can give you” but would refrain from supplying information that could be exploited by competitors.
“It’ll be justified by the results,” Dimon said on a call last month for fourth-quarter results. “But we’re not going to be giving detail on every single thing every single quarter. Part of it is to trust me, I’m sorry.”
The bank has consistently invested more than peers like Bank of America and Citi in the last decade while achieving higher returns on capital employed. It still has about $60bn of capital more than required by regulators, creating what Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo has described as a “$60bn question” for JPMorgan.
“The US banking industry is more competitive than any time since before the global financial crisis,” said Mayo. “JPMorgan, as the Goliath of Goliaths, is in fighting condition and ready to expand more aggressively.”
The Trump administration has pursued a deregulatory agenda for banks which should free up additional capital.
Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that 12 large banks, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citi, collectively have excess capital of about $175bn.
They predict that this could rise to as much as $279bn through relaxed rulemaking this year. Some of that will go towards funding more lending, with Morgan Stanley forecasting cumulative loan growth from last year to 2028 of $1tn at the large banks.
The broader question is whether they can find enough creditworthy borrowers and if not, how they put the capital to work.
Dimon has been lukewarm on buying back the bank’s own stock given its current high price.
JPMorgan finance chief Jeremy Barnum told investors last month that the bank was willing to invest at levels that would generate returns below its target for 17 per cent return on tangible common equity, a key profitability metric.
“It’s a high-class problem,” said Mayo. “But it is a problem of what to do with all the excess capital.”
