Jamie Dimon’s warning

Good morning to everyone except the fast-approaching debt ceiling. Phil Rosen here. 

Over the last week, the so-called "X-date" for a US default has commandeered conversations and headlines, with warnings coming from Janet Yellen, Goldman Sachs, and top CEOs.

But on Thursday, the man with the most gravitas on Wall Street shared his take on the potentially catastrophic scenario that's just weeks away.

Sign up here to receive Insider’s full 10 Things Before the Opening Bell newsletter — directly in your inbox.

And hear more from Insider's market experts by joining our LinkedIn group.

1. Everyone pays attention when Jamie Dimon speaks. And yesterday he said there's potential for widespread panic if lawmakers don't get their act together and strike a debt deal. 

That panic "affects contracts, collateral, clearing houses, clients," according to the JPMorgan CEO, who's now the only major bank chief that was around in 2008 and is still in the game today. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, Dimon said he's put together a "war room" at JPMorgan to plan for contingencies around a potential US default. 

He said his team currently meets once a week, but they could soon meet up to three times a day if folks in Washington continue to drag their feet on negotiations. 

While Dimon doesn't anticipate the country will actually see its first-ever default, he acknowledged the clock is running down.

"The closer you get to it, you will have panic," he said. "Markets will get volatile, maybe the stock market will go down, the Treasury markets will have their own problems." 

Dimon, whose bank earlier this month bought the assets of failed First Republic, said things should never happen this way, and any tumult in America impacts markets around the world.

As far as the banking crisis goes, Dimon said it's time for regulators to put an end to the chaos — but he's still predicting policymakers will carry the wrong lessons moving forward.

"I think it's going to get worse for banks," he said. "More regulations, more rules and more requirements. If you overdo certain rules, requirements, regulations — there are some of these community banks that tell me they have more compliance people than loan officers."

Not only should blame be placed at the feet of bank executives, but regulators should be looking in the mirror too, in Dimon's view. 

Here's how he put it:

"I think there needs to be humility on the part of regulators. They should look at it and say, 'OK, we were a little bit a part of the problem' as opposed to just pointing fingers."

What do you think of the JPMorgan chief's latest comments? Let us know in the comments.

In other news:

2. A hedge fund manager shared how he leverages GPT-4 to inform his top stock picks. He said it's not about one or two prompts, but rather how you navigate through each prompt with follow-up questions. Here are six takeaways from his AI experiments.

3. What credit crunch? Credit Suisse's chief US economist told us why fears of a severe pullback in lending are overblown. Plus, he broke down his view on why the US economy is well-positioned to avoid a recession. 

4. Personal finance expert "The Budgetnista" shared the two money mistakes that are holding people back from building wealth. She explained how you can determine whether you're on the right track.

5. Microsoft is the stock to buy as it leads the charge in the AI arms race. That's according to Wedbush, which said the tech giant's early move into OpenAI and ChatGPT gave it an advantage over Alphabet.

This is a condensed version of Insider’s 10 Things Before the Opening Bell newsletter. To see items 6-10, sign up here to receive the full newsletter in your inbox.

This newsletter was curated by Phil Rosen.