Big bank earnings give cause for relief and concern

It’s the kind of thing you’d hate to hear from your high school algebra teacher: You’re so…resilient. Translation: Maybe you’re better suited for the humanities.

But when the word “resilient” gets thrown around by big bank executives in reference to the US economy? Well, that’s quite a different story.

And the story that emerged throughout a busy earnings week for banks was one of relative resilience: Consumer spending hasn’t been totally derailed by rising prices (at least, not yet), but the full picture of the war in Iran’s impact hasn’t come fully into focus.

Life’s a gas. High gas prices, one of the most-discussed financial impacts of intersecting geopolitical conflicts, haven’t muted consumer spending.

“We saw healthy client activity, including solid consumer spending and stable asset quality, indicating a resilient American economy,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in the company’s Q1 2026 earnings report, released April 15.

Customers spent 16% more on gas in March, Moynihan noted on the company’s earnings call. That hasn’t majorly impacted consumer strength, in part because of the relatively small role gas plays in overall spending: BoA CFO Alastair Borthwick said gas typically comprises just 3% to 5% of consumer spending, per the Wall Street Journal.

Over at JPMorgan Chase, CFO Jeremy Barnum gave the low end of that range as the estimate for how much of consumer expenditure goes to gas/energy costs, at least among his customers. “It’s not nothing, but it’s not overwhelming,” he said on the company’s April 14 earnings call. “We’ve looked to see if there’s evidence in there of people trading, decreasing other discretionary spending to adjust for higher gas prices, but it’s just not enough yet to be visible.”

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf pointed out on the company’s April 14 earnings call that “it often takes consumers several months to reduce their spend levels on other categories to adjust for higher oil prices. And while we don’t know the exact timing, we would expect to see the same in the second half of the year.”

Other challenges for banks lie ahead. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who warned of “cockroaches” in the US economy back in October, said on April 14 that while “consumers [are] still earning and spending and businesses [are] still healthy,” the US economy is also facing “an increasingly complex set of risks—such as geopolitical tensions and wars, energy price volatility, trade uncertainty, large global fiscal deficits, and elevated asset prices.” (But you already knew that.)

And Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon noted on the investment bank’s April 13 earnings call that CEOs seem particularly concerned with the way “commodity prices [are] translating into the economy and into consumer demand.”

“It’s fair to say that people did not see that really translating through in the first quarter, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t extremely cautious about whether or not it will translate through in the second quarter,” he explained.

So sure, the US consumer is relatively resilient, but we’ve heard that one before (and have some math test scores that prove resilience can only get you so far).