Clients of giant US banks are increasingly nervous about growing trade tensions, but are not yet significantly curtailing business activity due to the uncertainty, banks have said, after reporting mixed earnings.
JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon cautioned yesterday that "There are unpredictable outcomes when you start skirmishes like this with multiple countries."
"It's a worry," he told reporters in a conference call, but "I don't know if I'd use the word 'major' yet."
"It's going to slow down decision making in some cases, but that hasn't translated yet into anything we've seen."
A note from S&P Global credit analyst Brendan Browne this week warned that the gains for banks from higher interest rates "are likely to diminish, because we expect deposit rates to rise more materially over the next year."
"In particular, we're seeing a lot of growth in trade flows just in the Asia corridor."