And so it’s hard to peg that expense number specifically. So we’re still targeting that net overhead ratio. And that sort of takes into account the fluctuations of those revenue streams going up and down with market conditions. But yeah, I don’t see anything dramatically structurally changing here right now.It’s really the deposit cost side of the equation that had a little bit of impact this quarter with the sort of the structural mix shift there that happened. This whole situation sort of woke up the sleeping hibernating bear as far as people looking at their rates paid on deposits. And I think we’ve seen a substantial part of that move already. So I don’t expect it to have a similar shift this quarter.Christopher McGratty Okay. That’s great.
And how about the covered call outlook?David Stoehr It sort of depends on where rates are at, but usually how it’s protected downside rate environment as we invest. The volatility at the beginning of this year, the covered call fee income, if you go back over time, this was a little bit of a higher level than we’ve seen over the prior four quarters, but there is higher volatility in the fee range is based on the volume of securities that you’re right calls against, but also volatility and we saw much higher volatility. So I would expect that to be down a little bit in the second quarter because we just have — we’ve been retaining a lot of those securities as liquidity just to be cautious early in the quarter. So we’ll see how it plays out the rest of the quarter.
But I imagine that’s down a little bit, but there’ll still be some.Christopher McGratty All right. Great. Thanks.Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Casey Haire of Jefferies. Please go ahead, Casey.Casey Haire Great. Thanks. Just one follow-up for me. The ramp scenario that you guys highlight if Fed cuts down 1%, just curious what kind of deposit beta you guys anticipate and mix under that kind of scenario, which is obviously pretty good?Timothy Crane Yeah. I mean I think I’m not sure I understand the nuance to your question, maybe, Casey, but we’re assuming that we’re going to get probably to a 50%-ish range for the full cycle here. And so sort of depends on the timing of those cuts. But as you can see in kind of the progression of those numbers — and I want to say Table 7, Dave, is that right?
We’ve narrowed our asset sensitivity position dramatically over the last four or five quarters here. So if that’s — if I’m not doing a good job answering your question, try again here.Casey Haire No, that’s right. So similar, Dave, is it similar pace on the way down as it was on the way up?David Stoehr Yeah. No, down would be a little bit faster than on the way up. We’d lag on up, we would be quicker on the way down. So it would be a little bit accelerated. And I think you can see that because on the up — we’ll make 1.7% on the upside under the ramp scenario, but only 1.3% on the downside. So a little bit faster cuts in deposit rates on the downside. I don’t have the exact beta for that at my fingertips, but a little bit faster.Casey Haire Got you.
Okay. Just one more. I think I know the answer, but I just wanted to check. With loan growth a little slower here, any appetite for share buyback?David Stoehr We don’t plan on it right now. We certainly have an appetite because we think — we all believe we’re undervalued here. But I think we’d like to see how this plays out a little bit. As Rich said, the loan growth was a little slower this quarter, but pipelines were higher at the end of the first quarter than they were at the end of the fourth quarter. There is good loan demand out there. So we will play this out and see how that goes. We’d rather reinvest in the business and take advantage of this disruptive market like we’ve done in the past. And go raise deposits and bring in new clients and expand the franchise.
So I think we’re going to see how that plays out first. That’s always been our goal is to grow the franchise and take advantage of disruption.Casey Haire Okay. Great. Ed, best wishes is in retirement. I hope you spend a lot of time in [indiscernible].Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nathan Race of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead, Nathan.Nathan Race Yeah. Hi, guys. Good morning. I also just want to echo everyone else’s comments and wishing you well Ed as you transition in Chairman, and it’s been great working with you over the years.Edward Wehmer Thank you, Nate.Nathan Race Just kind of thinking about the deposit growth outlook from here. It sounds like you guys had some nice inflows year-to-date with the MaxSafe products.
So I’m curious how much of that occurred post the bank failures that we saw in early March and just kind of how our deposit flows trending quarter-to-date and just kind of the overall outlook for core deposit growth over the course of this year within the context of maybe kind of what you’re seeing in terms of opportunities to add new relationships in the wake of some of the M&A-related disruption that we’ve seen in Chicago lately?Timothy Crane Yes. There were a couple of questions in there, Nate. One, with respect to MaxSafe, we were growing deposits prior to March 10, but clearly, that activity accelerated demand for sort of insurance-related products. And MaxSafe and the other reciprocal products that can handle even larger amounts, got a lot of air time and a lot of popularity.
So the majority of the MaxSafe growth occurred in March. We continue to think we’re really, really well positioned though. And so this is the time of the year we’re kind of wrestling some tax outflows as well. We think we’re kind of weathering those just fine.Quarter-to-date, as Rich kind of inferred, the loan growth is pretty good. The deposits remain stable and we’ve actually paid down some of the home loan borrowings. So we’re — we think we’re in a pretty good place here, and we’re very focused on growing deposits and continuing to fund the loan growth.Nathan Race Okay. Got it. And then just in terms of the balance sheet size from here and specifically the earning asset base, it was kind of stable quarter-over-quarter. Is that kind of a reasonable expectation to assume over the next couple of quarters as you just take securities cash flow runoff and redeploy that into kind of mid to low-single digit loan growth or how do you guys kind of think about kind of overall earning asset growth from here?David Stoehr No. We sort of like where our securities positions are at.
We would expect the balance sheet to grow. We’re going to go off market to — our deposit products in the communities and our consumer deposits grew during the quarter, and we expect that to continue to go on. The middle market space, we’re strong in. And with the pipeline is full, we expect to bring in new customers. So our expectation is that we will grow the balance sheet through deposits, and that translates into loan growth. And not just run the securities portfolio down to fund that growth.Edward Wehmer Total growth comment, we’ve got to continue to grow. If you look at we won the J.D. Power award again this year, three out of four years we won. Won another eight grant awards this year, saying our products are better than the big guys.
