Ben Pouladian
Founder of BEP Research, AI Compute Economics
Fears that consumer AI agents like Muse will massively accelerate chargebacks, fee disputes and penalty reversals at banks like JPMorgan are overdone. Guardrails will limit what agents can approve autonomously, and higher-risk disputes will be escalated to humans. Agents will make consumers more powerful, not give them an unlimited license to claw money back. x.comÂ
JPMorgan looks remarkably cheap against nearly every other bank despite being the best of them. Its forward P/E looks to be around 13. x.comÂ
Bank stocks look buyable if systematic selling is reacting to a flatter yield curve: the front end that drives earnings has barely moved. JPMorgan and Citi card spending rose 10% and 13%, and Citi and Wells Fargo reported lower credit losses. Wells expects steady margins and improving interest income as loans grow and old fixed-rate assets roll into higher yields. Funds crowded into banks before results, limiting near-term buyers. x.comÂ
JPMorgan's miss on both revenue and earnings strengthens the case for avoiding bank and financial stocks. The earlier bank-index chart rollover had suggested possible profit disappointment, but the observed JPMorgan share weakness is not a near-term price forecast. x.com x.com x.comÂ
JPMorgan stock has tended to bottom and return to all-time highs whenever CEO Jamie Dimon says he wouldn't buy stocks, and per @PolymarketMoney he just said it again. x.comÂ
Bank of America risks losing its near-free checking deposits if cash agents move idle balances out between paydays. If software forecasts bills and refills checking before they're due, a fat cushion at the bank stops making sense; the bank keeps the customer but loses the cheap deposit. BAC averaged $957B of consumer deposits last quarter, 59% in checking, and paying more to keep cash hurts the spread. Broader transfer authority would speed outflows; for now, watch deposit costs. x.comÂ
AI savings agents threaten the deposit spread behind the four largest US banks' profits. Per a Jefferies report, UK firm Riff's agent automatically moves money out of zero-interest accounts; if it scales, such balances could fall 80% and deposit margins from 190 to about 20 basis points, a hit near 80% of major UK bank profits. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup earned $69B of net interest income last quarter, over double their profits. Jefferies calls it 'when, not if'. x.com … Show more
JPMorgan is buyable on pullbacks to its daily 9-period moving average ahead of an earnings run-up in early July, with financials such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Interactive Brokers and Bank of America doing great. x.comÂ
JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway are the preferred ways to diversify away from speculative tech, thanks to their fortress balance sheets and relentless execution. x.comÂ
AI agents will erode credit card banks' pricing power. Since the GFC, uncompetitive card issuers have raised rates disproportionately in hiking cycles and barely cut them in easing cycles. Agents will let uninformed consumers refinance at much lower rates and make card points costlier as consumers optimize rewards. Medium term, that is net negative for JPMorgan, Citigroup, Capital One, American Express and Bank of America, and net positive for unsecured personal lenders such as SoFi and Upstart. … Show more
Hyperscalers look positioned to capture value from other industries in the agentic era. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet are all well positioned and proactive, with a good chance they all extract value from other markets, so no loser among them is clear yet. Businesses relying on convenience or brand, or charging high fees or interest such as banks and card issuers, must trade margin for volume. Alphabet has the largest agentic distribution, from Search and Android to Gemini. x.comÂ
