Alexander Blostein: Hey, guys. Good morning. Hey, Ron. Good morning guys. So just kind of following up on your last comments around utilization ex capital. It sounds like the discussion around M&A may be is picking up a little bit more, if I’m kind of reading your body language correctly, any particular area that you think you will participate more in whether it’s institutional or wealth when it comes to deploying excess capital, if you’re not going aggressive on the buyback?
Ronald Kruszewski: Well, I don’t €“ I certainly didn’t want to imply that we wouldn’t be aggressive on the buyback, Alex. What I’ve said is that we €“ that the amount €“ all things being equal, we’ve got a lot more available to point toward a buyback. So I’m not trying to say that €“ I just don’t like to say we’re going to buy x number of shares at any price come hell or high water. We just €“ we don’t approach it that way. But one of the best acquisitions out there is our own stock, all right? I always want to put the caveat out there that we’re €“ we’ve been an opportunistic firm. We’ve done over 30 acquisitions. And when we see a deal transaction that will increase our relevance and build our franchise, we’ll do that as well.
So I don’t €“ I didn’t want to imply €“ and I’m glad you asked the question that we have some acquisitions around, obviously, I couldn’t talk about it anyway. But let me just say that way, we have a lot of capital. As I look forward, I would say that we’re going to and we’re always looking at Wealth Management and Asset Management and what I would say more capital-light businesses to leverage our extensive platform. So I would favor that over other transactions. I think our goal in the Institutional growth is to consolidate based on market conditions and improved profitability back to 2020 levels. But look, we just did a nice acquisition in the Advisory side and Institutional and if something like that would appear, that was a very nice fit, we would highly consider it.
So again, maybe a roundabout way of saying it, but do not assume that I was saying we’re not going to do buybacks because we have the acquisition.
Alexander Blostein: Got it. All right. That is helpful. Second question for you guys, just wanted to dig into the funding mix a little more. I think I caught it right from Jim, the Smart Rate program was at $8.7 billion as of the end of the quarter. I think it’s up about $4 billion sequentially. So maybe talk a little bit about within your NIR assumptions, how are you thinking about further kind of client utilization and how significant do you think those balances will be in your sort of 2023 outlook? And just a clarification, when you talk about 40% to 50% deposit beta, that’s not accounting for the mix, right? This is just the rate increase on various programs you have.
Ronald Kruszewski: No, I think it is accounting for the mix, okay? We’re €“ today or through the end of the year, I would say that our total deposit beta is around 40%, maybe 41%, and that’s total and that includes the remixing into Smart Rate. And so €“ and our effective interest cost, Jim, which is…
James Marischen: For Smart Rate, it is at 4% today. Total interest cost was about 100 and was 142 basis points in the fourth quarter.
