Morning Coffee: Citi exec sleeping 3 hours a night; Goldman CEO stuck in a hotel room. JPMorgan's 'great thinker' is diminished
If you thought senior bank executives were having an OK time during this chaos, think again. It's not quite Hank Paulson in 2008, but it's not Jamie Dimon lying on the sofa browsing the papers either.
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Bloomberg reports that Andy Sieg - Citi's primary cost cutter and the head of its wealth management business - has been valiantly trying to keep up. Relentless news flow means the longest sleep "any of us have had" is three to four hours, said Sieg. It's not clear who the "us" is, but given that Citi's share price was down nearly 19% at one point, it presumably includes the likes of Jane Fraser and Mark Mason. Sieg, who is 57, but has always looked older than his years, said yesterday that buying the dip is inadvisable while the "tectonic shift" is occurring.
At Goldman Sachs, CEO David Solomon seem to have found himself tethered to a hotel room while he tried to navigate the chaos. Bloomberg reports that Solomon was "holed up" in a hotel, calling worried clients, when Trump suddenly announced the tariffs were paused. Instead of having an immediate lie-down, Solomon called Ashok Varadhan, the head of Goldman's trading business. Varadhan assured him that markets were responding well. It's not clear whether Solomon then had a celebratory biscuit, but presumably there was some respite.
By comparison, Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies, appears to have been relatively unscathed by the chaos. Jefferies' share price is down 27% since its March high, but Bloomberg reports that Handler was out having lunch at Coco's at Colette on Fifth Avenue with a hedge fund founder during the market chaos. When Trump issued his reprieve, Hander laughed and ate his French onion soup. It wasn't quite a spicy margarita, but it was at least a better than the cold pea soup consumed in celebration by his companion.
Separately, JPMorgan people are no strangers to making inappropriate statements about totalitarian states. - In 2021 Jamie Dimon himself famously said that the bank would outlast the Chinese Communist Party before having to retract his comment and apologise, twice.
With this possibly in mind, Michael Cembalest, a JPMorgan strategist described by Jamie Dimon as “one of our firm’s great thinkers,” has reportedly been self-censoring his reports on America.
“This is the first time I’ve ever had to do a call where I had to think about the things that I was saying, not just in terms of how they reflect our views on markets and economics,” said Cemblast. “People are being held accountable for their views and the things that they say in ways that they probably shouldn’t be. So I’ve said most of what I wanted to say on this call — but not all of it.”
Meanwhile...
Scot Bessent is back in the room. It was he who persuaded Trump to capitulate and that it wouldn't be a capitulation because there would be so many deals. He now has more authority in Trump's team of trade advisors. (Wall Street Journal)
Jamie Dimon made sure that Trump saw him speaking about the market chaos on Fox News where he encouraged policy makers to “negotiate some trade deals.” Trump likes Jamie Dimon and said, “He’s very smart, and very genius financially, did a fantastic job at the bank.” (Bloomberg)
78-year-old Howard Marks at Oaktree Capital says: "All norms have been overthrown. The way world trade has operated for the last 80 years may be of little relevance to the future.” (Bloomberg)
David Wagner at Aptus Capital Advisors said: “Does that break the rules? I don’t know, not that Trump follows any set of rules...Obviously now you’re going to look to Trump for any kind of sign.” (Bloomberg)
Kim Forest, Bokeh Capital Partners: “Even in emerging markets we have an idea what policies are. But here in the US we can no longer do a fundamental analysis of some of the best companies.” (Bloomberg)
Inside a major bank, a memo circulated showing trading volumes in most asset classes ranked as a 9 on a scale of 10. (Bloomberg)
Market volatility can do wonders for revenue on a big bank’s trading desk, until it gets so out of hand that liquidity dries up. (WSJ)
If you attend the first major of the golf season at Augusta National Golf Club, you have to adhere to the club’s strict ban on cellphones. No one there knows what's occurring in the markets. “It feels so good to be surrounded by a bunch of people who disconnected.” (WSJ)
Foreign nations’ share of Treasuries has dwindled to below 30% over the years, and most developed countries “no longer hold large reserves,” making a 1985 Plaza Accord-type deal “untenable.” (Adam Tooze)
Banks still have $15bn of debt from financing buyouts to sell. This includes the debt from Sycamore Partners' purchase of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (Bloomberg)
US banks are worried about being restricted in Europe. "We've lost a couple of bond deals already...they simply say that, you know, we'd rather just do this with a local bank than with a U.S. bank," said Jamie Dimon. (Reuters)
13% of Britain’s economic elite studied humanities, the highest proportion of the 16 countries. (Financial Times)
Colm Kelleher at UBS says the bank will have to double its capital if Swiss regulators get their way. “UBS is already hampered by the existing regulatory ‘Swiss finish’. Adding another ‘Swiss finish’ on top — while other financial centres are easing regulations — would harm UBS, the Swiss financial centre and the broader economy.” (Financial Times)
McKinsey promoted 56 partners. Six were women. (Bloomberg)
Woah. Survival among the top wealth quartiles in northern/western/southern Europe were higher than that among the wealthiest Americans. Survival in the wealthiest US quartile were similar the poorest quartile in northern/western Europe. (BlueSky)
These countries send here t-shirts, etc. and get $. Then they return these $ here for inheritly worthless notes of our gov. FED in turn buy those notes with $ created out of thin air. So this trade called a "ripoff" is basically: t-shirts for thin air. A good deal actually ...
— Marko Kolanovic (@markoinny) April 10, 2025
If it weren't for the tariffs, this would be one of the biggest stories in the world right now. From Bloomberg economist @D_W_Wilcox: pic.twitter.com/mzhlzLk1sF
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 10, 2025
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