I’ve never seen that in my career from the last — from the last fourth quarter, and it’s actually at 41 basis points this quarter. So as we talk about guidance for margin, I’m going to give you the same guidance for 2023 that we had in October with just one update. So as you think about the assumptions for margin, there’s really three things. It’s the size of the interest earning assets, it’s the assumption of interest rates, and it’s the last question you asked, which was the deposit data assumption. So in October, when we have this call, we gave a guidance about $40 billion average interest earning assets based in ’23 and we’re starting out a little smaller than that, but probably under little larger. So there’s really no change to that guidance.
On the last earnings call, as it relates to interest rates, on the last earnings call in October, the Moody’s consensus forecast was for fed funds to peak out at 4.75% in 2023. I think in the last forecast, it’s moved up 25 basis points to peak out at 5% and then there to be a 25 basis point decrease by the fourth quarter. So if you kind of average it out, it’s basically the same for 2023. The question you ask on Page 20 is our deposit data and it shows our cycle to deposit — cycle to deposit beta is at 5% versus our historical at 24% from last time and we just continue to model the same deposit by beta as lifecycle. And then based on the interest rate forecast deposit beta, we would expect deposit cost to get in that 1.15% to 1.25%, that second part of the year, which is about a 100 basis points from where we were there this past quarter and as we think about that timing, we would expect, 40% to 50% of that to happen in the first quarter with the remainder of that over the — of the rest of the year.
So with all that, I’d just say, during our last call, we guided to — in ’23, we guided to a 3.60% to 3.80% NIM range for 2023. And our guidance — or our assumptions really haven’t changed on any assumptions, but we are increasing our NIM guide to 3.70% to 3.90% for 2023. And that increase really is due to the 10 basis point re-class of the interest cost on the swap collateral that is now in noninterest income. Our noninterest — our net interest income guide increases by 10 basis points, and it decreases by the same amount to noninterest income, but total revenue is the same. But really, our guidance is essentially the same just with the whole geography change. So it’s a long-winded answer. But hopefully, that gives you the pieces and parts as we’re thinking about ’23.
Stephen Scouten: Yes. Extremely helpful color, Steve. And if I could just squeeze in one last one. Just maybe more high level here. John, you noted three years since you announced the larger MOE here, and you still have an advantage currency, and as you said, in really some of the markets in the country. But if you were to do incremental M&A over the next, let’s call it, two years, what would be, do you think, your focus there? Is it still deepening further in your current markets? Would you look to expand into other strong Southeast markets? Or how do you think about the franchise over the next couple of years?
