the economy is facing a tough path but the top brass on wall street is divided on how serious it will be jpmorgan chase ticker jpm chief executive jamie dimon spooked markets wednesday when he warned there was an economic “hurricane” coming dimon’s remarks which referred to the tightrope the federal reserve has to walk to tamp down inflation were more striking because just last week he referred to such headwinds as “storm clouds” but soon after dimon’s remarks brian moynihan chief executive at bank of america bac gave a less worrisome outlook “we’re in north carolina you’ve got hurricanes that come every year so we’re always prepared …we don’t have a choice” moynihan said wednesday both ceos were speaking at the bernstein strategic decisions conference the economic assessments of bank ceos garner a lot of attention and have the ability to move markets because large banks have a realtime window to the economy this is what made dimon’s seeming reversal more striking—people on wall street worried about what he may be seeing in his client’s behavior that would provoke such a rapid change in outlook even though moynihan’s remarks were less dire than dimon’s both men acknowledged the real challenges the economy faces during the pandemic the economy was flush with fiscal and monetary stimulus that kept things afloat despite many businesses being shut down that stimulus however also had an inflationary effect while it’s tough to bemoan things such as rapid job and wage growth the net effect is also a rapid increase in prices and it is the fed’s job to keep inflation under control what makes the fed’s task so difficult is the challenge of cooling down inflation without tipping what looks like a strong economy into a recession put another way the fed is trying to get the economy back into “equilibrium” moynihan said “the reality is …the best thing about the tough job is the part that makes it tough is actually a good thing a low unemployment and good wage growth and good consumer spending those are good things” moynihan said despite the more optimistic assessment on the economy banks have been under pressure this year investors had been hopeful that the fed’s moves to raise interest rates would boost margins but rate increases are of little help if the economy is in a recession the spdr sp bank etf kbe is down 11 this year while shares of jpmorgan and bank of america are both down by 18