Sharon Yeshaya: Sure. I’m just going to take them — I’ll take them in order. The first is, as you asked about loan growth. The NII guidance in the first quarter is not dependent on the loan growth projections. Obviously, the loan growth itself will be a function of the environment. As I said, from an SBL perspective, we have seen some pay downs and it will be dependent on market conditions. Now, the second quarter — the second question that you asked me around the deposits and the deposit growth, obviously, there are — there could be a portion of it that does come from, as you mentioned, different inputs that you might see, be that interest, et cetera, in the end of the fourth quarter. But broadly speaking, what we’ve seen with the deposit base is that we have many channels, i.e. savings, for example, where we can begin to get those deposits and attract new deposits to the institution and to the bank from other sources, external assets held away that come in.
And also, as you think about every piece of NNA that comes in over time, the $1 trillion that James mentioned, there’s generally a portion of that, that’s actually held from a cash perspective. And so that, I think, also needs to be taken account when thinking about the build as you go forward from the deposit, a longer-term deposit perspective.
Steven Chubak: That’s great. And just for my follow-up, as it relates to the trading outlook, I thought you guys did a really nice job of articulating some of the potential sources or drivers of inflection in Investment Banking activity. Admittedly, we’ve experienced a couple of years of pretty gangbusters trading and market activity. I was hoping to get your perspective on how you’re thinking about the outlook for the trading businesses. If you’re willing to go so far as to suggest what normalization might look like across both FICC and equities would be really helpful.
Sharon Yeshaya: Sure. I would look at it more holistically from an institutional perspective. And so when I think about what does it mean? We entered — I remember doing an investor conference in February of last year. And we talked a lot about what is normal and is 2019 normal. And our answer then was we would expect to actually normalize somewhere between 2019 and 2020 from an industry wallet perspective. In fact, it looks as though the industry wallet has just been right around that range within those two bonds. And when we look ahead, we would expect to remain above that 2019 level, and we’ll have to see what the upside is. But a lot of that growth in Sales & Trading has come from the divergent central bank policies and has also come from the fact that you have higher yields, right?
So when you think about investing in the fixed income product, and you go into that going forward, that could create different dynamics than we would have seen over the earlier 2010 through 2019 or ’17 outlook for Sales & Trading.
Operator: We’ll go next to Dan Fannon with Jefferies.
Dan Fannon: I wanted to follow up on the wealth business and the rollout of the companion accounts and the 90% that you’ve headed. Can you talk about the behavior change or what has happened subsequent to clients receiving those companion accounts and try to get a sense of what that could mean on a longer-term basis in terms of increased activity and asset flows?
Sharon Yeshaya: Absolutely, as James highlighted in his prepared remarks, the intention is to generally be in a position where we’re able to offer the right type of advice and content and wealth advice over the course of time when we go into the workplace. And so when we think about the retention of assets or we think about the companion account rollout, eventually, what that’s really doing is to make sure that we’ve provided content. We look at content, as I’ve said before, as a passport into the employees. And you think about that as financial wellness. Something that Jed highlighted in his presentation in the spring is, generally speaking, will you see $1 of vested assets that come into the institution through the stock plan business, we actually see approximately $9 compared to that $1 that come from assets held away.
That’s the consolidation of assets once you have this advice-based channel and the advice-based relationship. And so, what we’re trying to do is build on that. We have an FA referral process. We continue to use technology to help match the right individuals with the right FAs. We have better relationship management within E*TRADE and making sure that larger accounts are also connected appropriately to the right teams. These are all ways to build the right advice for the right clients to provide them choice and give them a reason to bring assets held away into the institution.
Dan Fannon: Got it. Okay. And then just as a follow-up, you talked about the longer-term efficiency potential. But I guess the thing about fourth quarter, there was some severance looking at non-comp expense as you think about next year. I just want to understand how we should think about the base level of expenses and potential changes and/or where you’re looking to be more efficient into this year?
Sharon Yeshaya: I mean, we’re always, as I said in my prepared remarks, looking at efficiency opportunities where there might exist. We just, as you highlight through the severance, we just had a December employee action. So, we obviously walk in with a different level of comfort as we kind of think about the expense base going forward. But as we’ve done with our own resources from a capital perspective, we’ll remain nimble and prudent, and look forward if and as the economic environment changes.
James Gorman: I think just on the efficiency ratio, it’s worth pointing out and Sharon mentioned this earlier, if you actually average the last two years, ’21, ’22, you end up right at 70%. ’21 was about 67, ’22 at 73. Part of it is revenue driven. We took the efficiency that will take some expenses out in the coming year. We also want to feed the beast. I mean, we’re growing parts of this firm. We’re trying to — we don’t — we’re not of the view that we’re heading into a dark period, whatever negativity in the world is out there. That’s not our house views. So we want to make sure we’re positioned for growth. This thing will turn. M&A underwriting will come back. I’m positive of it. So, we want to be well positioned for it, but we’re going to manage to that number of around 70% as best as we can.
