Michael Rose: Very thorough. Well, thank you very much. And then maybe just finally for me, maybe for Jeremy, just in higher for longer environment. How can we think about the broker-dealer segment and what are the puts and takes of kind of a higher for longer backdrop as it relates to the components of the business and then as you think about the pre-tax margin? Thanks.
Jeremy Ford: Okay, well, I think I mean, there’s a lot to that. I think on the public finance business, the higher rate environment has slowed underwritings, so I think that there’s – when rates decline, we think there’s a pipeline building that will provide some additional revenue there. You know, I think on – it’s kind of the shape of the curve having a higher short-term interest rates clearly benefit our wealth management businesses with our sweep deposits that are really tied to that. And also having the inverted yield curve has really challenged our fixed income business, which as – the nature of that business and the fact that a lot of what we’re – their activity is muted. We’re seeing with client demand, and the activity that we’re doing, we’re doing in shorter duration product that generates less revenue.
So I think in general, a more normalized yield curve will pull up the public finance and the fixed income business and will be a good offset for potential decline in the wealth management sweeps. If you think that with the wealth management sweeps, I think with the first 100 basis points of any decline that that’s probably something that we will ask back to the clients, so we’ll be able to sustain some of that revenue with that. I don’t know if that’s all over the map but that’s my response.
Michael Rose: No, that’s really a great components. And appreciate it Jeremy. Thanks for taking my questions everyone.
Jeremy Ford: Thank you.
Operator: And we will take our next question from Stephen Scouten with Piper Sandler.
Stephen Scouten: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I guess, if you could touch a little bit more on the mortgage business and what you’re seeing, I know you referenced some signs you’re seeing that things might be moving a bit more positive, what specifically you might be seeing there? And kind of what the pass to that in your mind looks like? Is this kind of a couple of years short of recovery or more normalized mortgage environment, or how are you thinking about that today?
Jeremy Ford: Yeah. My point would be kind of high level. There’s such a great amount and building pent up demand for housing and it’s generational. And so we’re seeing that, we’re seeing pockets, or markets where inventory is starting to become more available. And we’re seeing that the borrowers are starting to become accustomed to, and are more accepting of a mortgage rate that is in the sixes. We think that 6.5% mortgage rate is really a defining level there that if it goes below that, we think that there there’ll be more activity. And if it’s much higher than that, then it just continues to have this locked in effect that we have where there’s a large, a vast majority of — the mortgage market is – or mortgage holders are at rates, well less than the sixes.
So that’s what we’re seeing and we’re seeing it kind of slowly unlock. So, we don’t predict or think that there’s a hockey stick here, but we do think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. And for Prime, they’ve done a lot of work to reduce their platform costs. And we’re going to really continue to work hard to maintain that. So that when the revenue comes back, we’ll be able to leverage that to earnings.
Stephen Scouten: Okay. Yeah, that’s really helpful. Thanks. And, I guess, you referenced to maybe some new hires within Hilltop Securities, I’m wondering, is that of any meaningful scale that we’ll see that show up in the expense base, or is that just kind of normal course of business as you continue to build out that vision over time?
Jeremy Ford: Will, can speak to that.
Will Furr: Yeah. I think it’s normal course of business. I mean, we continue to invest in what we believe to be really high quality teams and individuals that we believe bring skill sets, I think what Jeremy was mentioning was we’ve seen some of our larger competitors exit certain businesses, and we’ve been able to — we believe benefit from that in terms of hiring some really quality folks from an overall cost perspective. It’ll be marginal in that regard, but we do expect them to be productive and accretive here over the coming quarters.
Stephen Scouten: Okay, great. And then I guess just last thing for me, how should we think about the share repurchases there, I mean, obviously you just bought back some shares at $31 were lower than that, I mean, at around one or two tangible or what have you, well, you’re up good today. But would you expect to be fairly aggressive with the share purchase around these levels?
Will Furr: I think that what we’re going to do is we’re going to try to — we’re mindful of it, we clearly know we are evaluating the value and see that, and we’re going to try to do share repurchase or towards our share repurchase authorization of around $75 million and if it’s, if valuations go down further, something maybe we’ll do something more, but for the time being, we’re going to just try to live within our share repurchase authorization.
Jeremy Ford: And I’ll just go back to HilltopSecurities. I mean, I personally am extremely excited about the talent and the team that we’re bringing on board combined with the existing talent that we have. So, I think that when it’s particularly in public finance and fixed income, and I think when those markets come back, I think that will, I’m hopeful that we will see some real revenue growth.
