But we have nothing teed up at this point. Russell Gunther Thanks, guys. And thank you all for taking my questions.Operator The next question comes from Brian Martin with Janney. Please go ahead.Brian Martin Good morning, guys. Say, most of my questions has been answered, but just a couple of things. maybe Vince Calabrese, just on the margin, I mean, I guess, can you talk about where the March margin was kind of at the steps you talked about a little bit about the liquidity? Just kind of what’s the starting point, if you will, for next quarter?Vince Calabrese Yes. The March margin, Brian, was 3.49% kind of our entry point into the second quarter.Brian Martin Got you. Okay. And just kind of the puts and takes from here, I guess, as you look into 2Q, kind of with the guide you’ve given?Vince Calabrese I guess 1 thing, too, to point out that’s important is with the excess cash we have, right, the additional liquidity that we grab $1 billion.
That obviously affects that ratio, right? So the net interest income comes down a little bit. The ratio gets affected by that kind of excess liquidity position, what was there. I’m sorry, what was your second question again, Brian?Brian Martin Yes. No, I was just saying just to kind of think about that margin, stepping point into the next quarter, 3.49% is kind of the starting point. Just as it ties to the guidance? I mean, I guess is your expectation that, that margin percentage is relatively flat from here? Or just — I know you talked about with rates being down, you could see a little bit of a benefit, but just near term in the next quarter or two?Vince Calabrese Yes, you just talk about net interest income. I mean it comes down a little bit from here.
And then we build into the third and fourth quarter is kind of given earning asset growth as we move into the third and fourth quarter. I mean the margins fluctuates a lot and with the noise in the balance sheet, it’s just harder to talk to the margin piece, Brian, but the net interest income. Okay.Brian Martin And as far as just that excess liquidity, Vince, I mean, what’s the plan? I guess, how long do you plan — I guess, do you just plan to keep that for a bit? Will some of it exit? Or just how are you thinking about that then?Vince Calabrese That’s what I was saying one-third of it is kind of six months or less and then the third is one year versus two years. So we just let that — we’re not going to prepay it, just let that naturally kind of get absorbed as we lose time.Brian Martin Got you.
Okay. I missed that part. So all right. And then just the pipeline, the loan pipelines in the quarter. I missed what you guys said there on the commercial side. Maybe that was Vince as far as what where they’re at or just kind of how they’re trending here?Vince Delie Well, I think the pipelines are a little softer than they’ve been historically at the same time. I don’t think that we’re out as aggressively knocking on doors. And I think that the demand has fallen off a little bit kind of unilaterally kind of across the board.I will tell you that the short-term pipelines look pretty decent, our 90-day — we measure it 90 days and then beyond. Beyond 90 days looks a little softer. The 90-day pipeline looks a little more solid. There’s a higher percentage of fundings coming through in that pipeline, which means there’s less junket I think people are a little more focused.
So it’s a mixed bag as I look across all of the markets. Some of the markets in Carolina are down. Some have better pipelines, South Carolina looks pretty good. Charlotte looks good short term, is probably building their long-term pipeline. Cleveland and Pittsburgh are doing okay. So it’s kind of all over the board, which tells me there’s a lot of caution out there in the customer base.So it’s not us, it’s not due to a lack of effort on the calling side, I think it’s more about what the client is doing, and there’s less demand from our existing customers for CapEx spend at this stage in the cycle, which is probably a good thing, right? So a little more caution in the portfolio.What we’re also seeing is utilization rates are flat. No one asked that question is all offered up.
I think basically, as we look at the C&I book and Gary, you can chime in if you like to. But I think a lot of our customers have not been building inventories, they’ve actually been leading inventory, moving their short-term assets to cash as we move into a slower economic period. So we’re starting to see reductions in line balances. And I think after the disruption that occurred in the banking industry, a number of companies, it gave them a heightened awareness about where they are and they took cash and basically paid down revolver debt, because they’re paying a much higher interest rate than receiving. So a lot of that’s going on over the last few months, and it’s a little hard to forecast out through the end of the year, but I would expect us to be in line with our guide, but it’s going to be a bit to get there.
Go ahead.Gary Guerrieri I would agree with the customer’s position on managing inventory downward. We’re pretty much seeing that across the board. Naturally, they built up some inventory during the supply chain issues. They’ve moved through some of that and with caution ahead from an economic standpoint, potentially slow down there. They are very focused on their inventory positions. And I would expect that to continue to move down and will go forward.Brian Martin Perfect. Thank you for the color. And just on the new origination yields, just — I don’t know if Gary or whomever, but just kind of where are those at today on the loan front?Vince Calabrese I think…Gary Guerrieri No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, Vince, you got the specific numbers.
I mean, I have generalities.Vince Calabrese I can make a high-level comment here and then any color you want to add. Just new loans made during the first quarter came on at $631 million, but for comparison, that was $570 million in the fourth quarter, and that’s total loans.Brian Martin Got you. Okay. Perfect. And maybe, Gary, just you mentioned earlier on the call, just the criticized level. Did you say that, that was up modestly in the quarter? I think you said down year-over-year? Or do I have that wrong as far as what criticized assets did?Gary Guerrieri It was up 19 basis points quarter-over-quarter, Brian, down 55 basis points on a year-over-year basis with a with a $5 billion larger balance sheet. So they’re at near low record levels from a criticized standpoint still today.Brian Martin Okay.
And just the increase, was there anything specific that kind of drove the increase? Or is it just a lot of things in there? Just anything you would point to, given all the things you’ve get, disclosure you’ve added on credit?Gary Guerrieri Yes, not really. It was kind of just general. Brian Martin Okay. Got you. Okay. And Bill, just the last one for me was on the capital markets revenue. I think you talked about syndications and being a little bit lower. Just any thoughts on just how that — I guess, expectation would be that you see a little bit of volatility in that, but it should trend higher as you go throughout the year?Vince Delie Yes. I think if you look at how we performed this quarter, it’s pretty consistent with a less robust. It’s kind of our baseline performance, right?
