When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced this week that he wouldn't touch stocks or Treasurys at current prices, a profound wave of validation washed over me. Let me be clear: it takes a truly visionary mind to look at a historically resilient market and confidently declare that everyone making money is a fool. For years, I have been mocked by my peers, my readers, and my former financial advisors for refusing to participate in the so-called rally. Now, the most powerful banker in the world has confirmed what I have known since I liquidated my entire portfolio during the Obama administration: the only responsible financial position is absolute, paralyzing terror.
The street is currently infected with a dangerous pathogen known as optimism. Retail investors and institutional sheep alike are blithely ignoring the compounding headwinds of geopolitical conflict, looming tariffs, and macroeconomic shocks. They see a chart going up and they buy. It is a peasant’s reflex. Jamie and I—and I feel comfortable using his first name here, as we once made simultaneous eye contact with the same tray of passed hors d'oeuvres at the Aspen Ideas Festival—understand that true leadership requires sitting perfectly still while your purchasing power erodes.
It is easy to buy the S&P 500. Any novice with a brokerage app can capture a massive annual return by simply closing their eyes and trusting the structural momentum of the American economy. But where is the intellectual rigor in that? Where is the friction? By refusing to buy equities at these valuations, Jamie Dimon is demonstrating the kind of high-level restraint that separates the masters of the universe from the guys who are just trying to comfortably retire at sixty-five. I, too, have exercised this restraint, which is why my retirement plan currently hinges entirely on a catastrophic global collapse that vindicates my cash position.
In my recent keynote to a half-empty ballroom at the Boise Regional Supply Chain Summit, I articulated this exact thesis. I told the audience of mid-level logistics managers that true vision requires looking past the distraction of actual, realized profits. I was met with blank stares, the exact same blank stares I imagine Jamie receives when he tells his board that a record-breaking Dow is actually a trap. The loneliness of the visionary is a heavy burden. We are cursed to see the systemic rot that the masses are too distracted by their compounding dividends to notice.
Dimon's explicit rejection of Treasurys is perhaps the most exhilarating part of his doctrine. For decades, the 10-year Treasury note has been the cowardly refuge of the risk-averse. But at today's prices, even the full faith and credit of the United States government is a sucker's bet. Why would I lock up my capital for a measly few hundred basis points when I could hold it in a zero-yield checking account, perfectly positioned to deploy the second the Dow drops back to 2008 levels?
My wealth manager recently tried to stage an intervention. He showed me a chart detailing the wealth I have forfeited by keeping my assets in a money market fund for the last twelve years. He used words like fiduciary duty and generational wealth destruction. I simply slid a printout of Dimon’s recent remarks across the mahogany table and watched the color drain from his face.
I am literally begging you to buy a single share of an index fund, or at least put this in a high-yield CD so inflation doesn't turn your net worth to dust.
Julian lacks the capacity to see the board. He looks at recent corporate earnings and sees resilience; I look at them and see a house of cards waiting for a stiff breeze. Dimon correctly noted that markets are underestimating risks. The geopolitical landscape is a tinderbox. Supply chains are fraying. The Fed is navigating a tightrope in a hurricane. To deploy capital into this environment is to admit you cannot tolerate the suspense of holding cash. It is an emotional failure.
When you reach the strata that Jamie and I operate in, you realize that investing is not about making money. It is about being right. And you cannot be proven right in a bear market if you are busy participating in a bull market. The psychological fortitude required to watch your neighbors buy second homes while you aggressively monitor the price of canned lentils is immense. Dimon gets this. By keeping JPMorgan’s powder dry, he is signaling to the market that he answers to history, not to quarterly momentum. I am doing the exact same thing, albeit with a portfolio roughly three trillion dollars smaller.
The critics will say that Dimon can afford to sit out a market cycle because he is already a billionaire with a fortress balance sheet, whereas I am a man in his late forties whose primary asset is a 2011 Honda Accord. This is a deliberate misunderstanding of scale. The principles of wealth preservation remain identical. Whether you are managing the largest bank in the Western Hemisphere or budgeting for a domestic vacation, the mandate is clear: do not buy.
As we approach the end of the year, the bulls will undoubtedly continue their victory lap. They will point to their bloated brokerage statements and their unearned returns. Let them have their fleeting joy. When the inevitable reckoning arrives, when the tariffs bite, the shocks compound, and the entire system deleverages, Jamie Dimon and I will be standing in the wreckage, clutching our perfectly preserved, deeply devalued cash. And as the dust settles, we will turn to each other, nod knowingly, and continue waiting for a slightly better entry point.