Jamie Dimon unloads $31.5 million in JPMorgan stock. What do his recent transactions mean?
The JPMorgan CEO’s sales are part of a predetermined 10b5-1 trading plan.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sold $31.5 million in company stock on Monday, per a regulatory filing, after the bank’s impressive first-quarter earnings results had propelled the stock 4% higher the previous trading day.
Let’s take stock of Dimon’s words and actions regarding JPMorgan stock:
Back in 2016, Jamie Dimon stepped into the breach to buy more than $25 million in his own stock, which helped quell angst in a market rattled by a drawn-out industrial recession in the US and fears of a hard landing in China. The timing — which marked the bottom for the overall market — along with his position leading America’s preeminent bank are the big reasons why Dimon’s transactions are even more closely watched than most insiders.
Fast-forward to February of this year, when a filing showed that Dimon planned to sell 1 million shares of the company from early November 2024 through August 2025 as part of a rule 10b5-1 plan, which effectively locks in transactions based on changes in the share price, amount sold, and timing. This removes any discretionary aspect to the activity, key for executives who are privy to loads of material nonpublic information, and is one reason why we generally shouldn’t read too much into these share sales.
But shortly thereafter, Dimon offered some support for the idea he didn’t think the stock was a great value, telling CNBC that he was “very reluctant to buy back stock at these prices.”
Just days before the company reported earnings, Dimon appeared on Fox Business in an appearance reportedly designed to relay a message to President Donald Trump about how tariffs were making a US recession a “likely outcome.”
As prices had changed, Dimon seemingly changed his mind: the bank’s first-quarter results indicated the company bought back a higher share of its own stock relative to its quarter-end market value than any period since 2021. One suspects the bank was aggressive in buying back its own shares in March, during the rout that saw shares fall nearly 20% from their peak.
Prior to Monday’s divestment, Dimon had last sold shares on February 20, and before that, on January 31. Before that, he hadn’t recorded a sale since April 19, 2024. Even after this sale of 133,639 shares, he still holds nearly 6.5 million shares in JPMorgan, worth about $1.5 billion.
