JPMorgan to Hire This Year on Wealth, Dealmaking Revival

Morgan Stanley had to set aside $353 million in severance cost last year, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said its number of staff decreased 7% during 2023, which reflected a “headcount reduction initiative” across the firm.

Overly Optimistic

Separately, Pinto joined other Wall Street executives in predicting that investor expectations for a series of interest-rates cuts this year might prove over-optimistic.

“The market was pricing until yesterday six cuts which is a very unlikely scenario,” he said. “If you put yourself in the shoes of the Fed, if that is the scenario and the unemployment rate is so tight and the economy is doing fine, why are you going to rush it?”

Pinto said he expects the Fed to cut rates if “everything continues to go this way” but said any change would probably come later in the year.

Pinto also cautioned that many investors may not have priced in the geopolitical risk which he called “substantial.”

“The geopolitical situation is stable to deteriorating: terrible things happening in Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, the tension between China and the U.S., electoral cycles,” he said. “There are issues that for sure have not been priced in the market and that’s a time to be be careful on this sort of optimism.”

Pinto has been sole president of JPMorgan for two years, with business-line heads reporting jointly to him and his boss, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. He rose through the firm’s massive trading business to oversee the corporate and investment bank, which he still does today in addition to holding the president role.

(Credit: Bloomberg)