Jamie Dimon: CEO's Shouldn't Make Earnings Forecasts

• Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO at JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, was recently a guest on Bloomberg TV's new flagship morning program, Bloomberg <GO>.
• The expert discussed several issues, including the reputation of banks after the financial crisis, his view on the Chinese economy, concerns over tech valuations, and regulation among others.
• This article will focus on his comments on CEOs making earnings forecasts.

Talking about long-term investing versus immediate returns (being the former what the CEO prefers), Dimon said, “I think a lot of shareholders completely appreciate long-term investing. And I think some CEOs get bolloxed up when they start making promises they shouldn't make. So if I was a CEO don't make earnings forecast! You don't know what's going to happen every quarter and I don't even care about quarterly earnings. Let me say this just outright, I don't care about quarterly earnings.”

He continued to explain that he has “never done anything for quarterly earnings.” As a matter of fact, he added, JPMorgan’s quarterly earnings “are based upon decisions that have been made over the last 5 or 10 years,” many, by Dimon’s predecessors.

“You know when you build systems and peoples and relations and technology and you enter country after country… you're not doing that for short-term things,” he added.

The Chief Executive concluded with some advice, “do the right thing for the right reason. Explain it to your shareholders. And most shareholders will understand that. And I speak to them all the time and they want us to do that. You know? And they want us to think long-term in how we're building it for the future and how we're going to win in the businesses.”

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.