Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to JPMorgan Chase's second quarter 2024 earnings call. This call is being recorded. Your line will be muted for the duration of the call. We will now go live to the presentation. The presentation is available on JPMorgan Chase's website, and please refer to the disclaimer in the back concerning forward-looking statements. Please stand by. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to JPMorgan Chase's Chief Financial Officer, Jeremy Barnum. Mr. Barnum, please go ahead. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Starting on page one, the firm reported net income of $18.1 billion, EPS of $6.12 on revenue of $51 billion, with an ROTCE of 28%. These results included the $7.9 billion net gain related to Visa shares and the $1 billion foundation contribution of the appreciated Visa stock. Also included is $546 million of net investment securities losses in Corporate. Excluding these items, the firm had net income of $13.1 billion, EPS of $4.40, and an ROTCE of 20%. Touching on a couple of highlights. In the CIB, IB fees was up 50% year-over-year and 17% quarter-over-quarter, and Markets revenue was up 10% year-over-year. In CCB, we had a record number of first-time investors and strong customer acquisition across checking accounts and card, and we've continued to see strong net inflows across AWM. Now, before I give more detail on the results, I just want to mention that starting this quarter, we are no longer explicitly calling out the First Republic contribution in the presentation. Going forward, we'll only specifically call it out if it is a meaningful driver in the year-on-year comparison. As a reminder, we acquired First Republic in May of last year, so the prior year quarter only has two months of First Republic results, compared to the full three months this quarter. Also, in the prior year quarter, most of the expenses were in Corporate, whereas now they are primarily in the relevant line of business. Now turning to page two for the firm-wide results. The firm reported revenue of $51 billion, up $8.6 billion or 20% year-on-year. Excluding both the Visa gain that I mentioned earlier, as well as last year's First Republic bargain purchase gain of $2.7 billion, revenue of $43.1 billion was up $3.4 billion or 9%. NII ex Markets was up $568 million or 3%, driven by the impact of balance sheet mix and higher rates, higher revolving balances in card, and the additional month of First Republic related NII, partially offset by deposit margin compression and lower deposit balances. NIR ex Markets was up $7.3 billion or 56%. Excluding the items I just mentioned, it was up $2.1 billion or 21%, largely driven by higher investment banking revenue and asset management fees. Both periods included net investment securities losses, and Markets revenue was up $731 million or 10% year-on-year. Expenses of $23.7 billion were up $2.9 billion or 14% year-on-year. Excluding the foundation contribution I previously mentioned, expenses were up 9%, primarily driven by compensation, including revenue-related compensation and growth in employees. Credit costs were $3.1 billion, reflecting net charge-offs of $2.2 billion and a net reserve build of $821 million. Net charge-offs were up $820 million year-on-year, predominantly driven by Card. The net reserve build included $609 million in Consumer and $189 million in Wholesale. Onto balance sheet and capital on page three. We ended the quarter with a CET1 ratio of 15.3%, up 30 basis points versus the prior quarter, primarily driven by net income, largely offset by capital distributions and higher RWA. As you know, we completed CCAR a couple of weeks ago and have already disclosed a number of the key points. Let me summarize them again here. Our preliminary SCB is 3.3%, although the final SCB could be higher. The preliminary SCB, which is up from the current requirement of 2.9%, results in a 12.3% standardized CET1 ratio requirement, which goes into effect in the fourth quarter of 2024. And finally, the firm announced that the board intends to increase the quarterly common stock dividend from $1.15 to $1.25 per share in the third quarter of 2024. Now, let's go to our businesses, starting with CCB on page four. CCB reported net income of $4.2 billion on revenue of $17.7 billion, which was up 3% year-over-year. In Banking and Wealth Management, revenue was down 5% year-over-year, reflecting lower deposits and deposit margin compression, partially offset by growth in wealth management revenue. Average deposits were down 7% year-over-year and 1% quarter-over-quarter. Client investment assets were up 14% year-over-year, predominantly driven by market performance. In Home Lending, revenue of $1.3 billion was up 31% year-over-year, predominantly driven by higher NII, including 1 additional month of the First Republic portfolio. Turning to Card Services and Auto, revenue was up 14% year-over-year, predominantly driven by higher card NII on higher revolving balances.... Card outstandings were up 12% due to strong account acquisition and the continued normalization of revolve. In Auto, originations were $10.8 billion, down 10%, coming off strong originations from a year ago, while continuing to maintain healthy margins. Expenses of $9.4 billion were up 13% year-on-year, predominantly driven by First Republic expenses now reflected in the lines of business, as I mentioned earlier, as well as field compensation and continued growth in technology and marketing. In terms of credit performance this quarter, credit costs were $2.6 billion, reflecting net charge-offs of $2.1 billion, up $813 million year-on-year, predominantly driven by card as newer vintages season and credit normalization continues. The net reserve build was $579 million, also driven by card due to loan growth and updates to certain macroeconomic variables. Next, the Commercial and Investment Bank on page five. Our new Commercial and Investment Bank reported net income of $5.9 billion on revenue of $17.9 billion. You'll note that we are disclosing revenue by business, as well as breaking down the Banking and Payments revenue by client coverage segment in order to best highlight the relevant trends in both important dimensions of the wholesale franchise. This quarter, IB fees were up 50% year-on-year, and we ranked number one with year-to-date wallet share of 9.5%. In advisory, fees were up 45%, primarily driven by the closing of a few large deals and a weak prior year quarter. Underwriting fees were up meaningfully, with equity up 56% and debt up 51%, benefiting from favorable market conditions. In terms of the outlook, we're pleased with both the year-on-year and sequential improvement in the quarter. We remain cautiously optimistic about the pipeline, although many of the same headwinds are still in effect. It's also worth noting that pull-forward refinancing activity was a meaningful contributor to the strong performance in the first half of the year. Payments revenue was $4.5 billion, down 4% year-on-year, as deposit margin compression and higher deposit-related client credits were largely offset by fee growth. Moving to Markets, total revenue was $7.8 billion, up 10% year-on-year. Fixed Income was up 5%, with continued strength in Securitized Products, and Equity Markets was up 21%, with Equity Derivatives up on improved client activity, and we saw record revenue in Prime on growth and client balances amid supportive Equity Market levels. Securities Services revenue was $1.3 billion, up 3% year-over-year, driven by higher volumes and market levels, largely offset by deposit margin compression. Expenses of $9.2 billion were up 12% year-over-year, largely driven by higher revenue-related compensation, legal expense, and volume-related non-compensation expense. In Banking and Payments, average loans were up 2% year-over-year due to the impact of the First Republic acquisition and flat sequentially. Demand for new loans remains muted as middle market and large corporate clients remain somewhat cautious due to the economic environment, and revolver utilization continues to be below pre-pandemic levels. Also, capital markets are open and are providing an alternative to traditional bank lending for these clients. In CRE, higher rates continue to suppress both loan origination and payoff activity. Average client deposits were up 2% year-over-year and relatively flat sequentially. Finally, credit costs were $384 million. The net reserve build of $220 million was primarily driven by incorporating the First Republic portfolio in the firm's modeled approach. Net charge-offs were $164 million, of which about half was in Auto. Then, to complete our lines of business, AWM on page six. Asset and Wealth Management reported net income of $1.3 billion, with pre-tax margin of 32%. Revenue of $5.3 billion was up 6% year-over-year, driven by growth in management fees on higher average market levels and strong net inflows, as well as higher brokerage activity, largely offset by deposit margin compression. Expenses of $3.5 billion were up 12% year-over-year, largely driven by higher compensation, primarily revenue-related compensation and continued growth in our private banking advisor teams. For the quarter, long-term net inflows were $52 billion, led by equities and fixed income. In liquidity, we saw net inflows of $16 billion. AUM of $3.7 trillion was up 15% year-over-year, and client assets of $5.4 trillion were up 18% year-over-year, driven by higher market levels and continued net inflows. Finally, loans and deposits were both flat quarter-over-quarter. Turning to corporate on page seven. Corporate reported net income of $6.8 billion on revenue of $10.1 billion. Excluding this quarter's Visa-related gain and the First Republic bargain purchase gain in the prior year, NIR was up approximately $450 million year-over-year. NII was up $626 million year-over-year, driven by the impact of balance sheet mix and higher rates. Expenses of $1.6 billion were up $427 million year-on-year. Excluding foundation contribution, expenses were down $573 million year-on-year, largely as a result of moving First Republic-related expense out of corporate into the relevant segments. To finish up, we have the outlook on page eight. Our 2024 guidance, including the drivers, remains unchanged from what we said at Investor Day. We continue to expect NII and NII ex markets of approximately $91 billion, adjusted expense of about $92 billion, and on credit, card net charge-off rate of approximately 3.4%. So to wrap up, the reported performance for the quarter was exceptional and actually represents record revenue and net income. But more importantly, after excluding the significant items, the underlying performance continues to be quite strong. As always, we remain focused on continuing to execute with discipline. With that, let's open the line for Q&A. Please stand by. For our first question, we'll go to the line of Steven Chubak from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, Jeremy. Good morning. I wanted to start off with a question on capital. Just given some indications that the Fed is considering favorable revisions to both Basel III Endgame and the GSIB surcharge calculations, which I know you've been pushing for some time, as you evaluate just different capital scenarios, are these revisions material enough where they could support a higher normalized ROTCE at the firm versus a 17% target? And if so, just how that might impact or inform your appetite for buybacks going forward. Right. Okay, now, thanks, Steve. And actually, before answering the question, I just want to remind everyone that Jamie is not able to join because he has a travel conflict overseas, so it's just going to be me today. Okay, good question on the capital and the ROTCE. So let me start with the ROTCE point first. In short, my answer to that question would be no. It's hard to imagine a scenario coming out of the whole potential range of outcomes on capital that involves an upward revision on ROTCE. If you think about the way we've been talking about this, we've said that, you know, before the Basel III Endgame proposal, we had a 17% through-the-cycle target and that while you can imagine a range of different outcomes, the vast majority of them involve expansions of the denominator. While we had ideas about changing the perimeter and repricing, all of which are still sort of in effect, you know, most of those would be thought of as mitigants rather than things that would actually, like, increase the ROTCE. And I don't really think that answer has, you know, particularly changed. So as of now, that's what I would say, which is a good pivot to the next point, which is, yeah, we've been reading the same press coverage you've been reading, and, you know, it's fun and interesting to speculate about the potential outcomes here, but in reality, we don't know anything you don't know. We don't know how reliable the press coverage is. In that sense, I feel like on the overall capital return and buyback trajectory, not much has actually changed relative to what I laid out at Investor Day and the comments that I made then, the comments that Jamie made then, as well as the comments that Jamie made subsequent week at an industry conference. Maybe I'll just briefly summarize for everyone's benefit what we think that is, which is, one, we do recognize that our current practice on capital return and buybacks does lead to an ever-expanding CET1 ratio. Obviously, we're going to run the company over the cycle over time at a reasonable CET1 ratio with reasonable buffers relative to our requirements. After all the uncertainty is sorted out, the question of the deployment of the capital one way or another is a matter of when, not if. On the capital hierarchy, it's also worth noting that's another thing that remains unchanged, so I'll review it quickly. You know, growing the business organically and inorganically, sustainable dividend, and in that context, it's worth noting that the board's announced intention to increase it to $1.25 is a 19% increase prior to last year. So that's a testament to our performance, and that is a return of capital. And then finally, buyback. But that hierarchy does not commit us to return 100% of the capital generation in any given quarter. And so, you know, as we said here today, when you look at the relationship between the opportunity cost of not deploying the capital and the opportunities to deploy the capital outside the firm, it's kind of hard to imagine an environment where that relationship argues more strongly for patience. So given all that, putting it all together, I'm sorry for the long answer, we remain comfortable with the current amount of excess capital, and as Jamie has said, we really continue to think about it as earnings in store as much as anything else. No need to apologize, Jeremy. That was a really helpful perspective. Maybe just for my follow-up on NII. You've been very consistent just in flagging the risk related to NII over-earning, especially in light of potential deposit attrition as well as repricing headwinds. In the second quarter, we did see at least some moderation in repricing pressures. Deposit balances were also more resilient in what was a seasonally weak quarter for deposit growth. So just given the evidence that some deposit pressures appear to be abating, do you see the potential for NII normalizing higher? And where do you think that level could ultimately be in terms of stabilization? Yeah, interesting question, Steve. So let's talk about deposit balances. So, yeah, I see your point about how balance pressures are slightly abating. You know, when you look at the system as a whole, just to go through it, you know, QT is still a bit of a headwind. Loan growth is modest and not enough to offset that, and RRP seems to have settled in roughly at its current levels, and there are reasons to believe that it might not go down that much more, although that could always change, and that could supply extra reserves into the system. But on balance, net across all those various effects, we still think that, you kno w, there are net headwinds to deposit balances. So when we think of our balance outlook, we see it as, you know, flat to slightly down, maybe, with our sort of market share and growth ambitions offsetting those system-wide headwinds. So you know, in terms of normalizing higher, I guess it depends on relative to what. But, you know, I think it's definitely too early to be sort of calling the end of the overearning narrative or the normalization narrative. Clearly, the main difference in our current guidance relative to what we had earlier in the year, which implied a lot more sequential decline, is, you know, just the change in the Fed outlook. So 2 cuts versus 6 cuts is the main difference there. But, you know, obviously based on the latest inflation data and so on, you could easily get back to a situation with a lot more cuts in the yield curve. So we'll see how it goes. You know, and in the end, we're kind of focused on just running the place, recognizing and trying not to be distracted by what remains some amount of overearning, whatever it is. Understood, Jeremy. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Thanks, Steve. Next, we'll go to the line of Saul Martinez from HSBC. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Jeremy, can you give an update on the stress capital buffer? You noted obviously that you think there is an error in the Fed's calculation due to OCI. Can you just give us a sense of what the dialogue with the Fed looks like? Is there a process to modify the SCB higher? And if you can give us a sense of what that process looks like. Yeah. So I'm not going to comment about any conversations with the Fed. You know, they—not to confirm or deny that they even exist, you know, that stuff is private. And, you know, so and then if you, if you talk about, like, the timing here, right? So you know that the stress capital buffer that's been released at 3.3% is a preliminary number. By rule, the Fed has to release that, by August thirty-first. It may come sooner. You know, you talked about an error in the calculation. We haven't used that word. You know, what we know, what we believe, rather, is that, the amount of OCI gain that came through the Fed's disclosed results looked non-intuitively high to us. You know, if you adjust that in ways that we think are reasonable, you know, you would get a slightly higher stress capital buffer. Whether the Fed agrees and whether they decide to make that change or not is up to them, and, you know, we'll see what happens. I think the larger point is that if you look at the industry as a whole, and if you sort of put us into that with some higher pro forma SCB, whatever it might conceivably be, you actually see, once again, quite a bit of volatility in the year-over-year change in the stress capital buffer for many firms. It's just sort of reiterating another example of what we've said a lot over the years, that it's very, it's volatile, it's untransparent, it makes it very hard to manage the capital of a bank. It leads to excessively high management buffers, and, you know, we think it's really not a great way to do things. So I'll leave it at that. Okay, got it. That's helpful. Just following up on capital returns, you know, on Steve's question, you know, I think you highlighted in response, it's a matter of when, not if. And, you know, obviously, Jamie's not there. You know, you can't speak for Jamie, but seems to have shown limited enthusiasm for, you know, a special dividend or, or, you know, buybacks at current valuations. Can you just give us a sense of, you know, how you're thinking about the various options, any updated thoughts on your special dividend? And, can you do other things like, for example, have a material increase in your dividend payout, sort of a step function increase where, you know, and keep that flat and grow into that, grow your earnings into that over time? Can you just maybe give us a sense of how you're thinking about what, you know, what options you have available to deploy that, you know, that capital? Sure, yeah. I mean, I would direct you to read, I'm sure you have, you know, Jamie's comments at the industry conference where he participated the week after Investor Day, because he went into just a good amount of detail on this stuff, addressing some of these points. And I think his comment there about the special dividend was that it's not really our preference. You know, we hear from people that many of our investors wouldn't find that particularly appealing. And he said as much that it wouldn't be sort of our first choice. So I think the larger point is just that, a little bit to your question, there are a number of tools in the toolkit, and they're really the same tools that are part of our capital hierarchy. So first and foremost, we're, you know, looking to deploy the capital into organic or inorganic growth. And then, you know, the dividend, I think we're always gonna wanna keep it in that sort of like sustainable and also sustainable in a stressed environment. So that continues to be the way we think about that. And then at the end of it, it's buybacks. And, you know, Jamie's been on the record for, you know, over a decade, I think, over many shareholder letters, talking about, you know, how he thinks about price and buybacks and valuation and, you know, price is a factor. So, that's sort of the totality of the set of options, I guess. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Saul. Next, we'll go to the line of Ken Usdin from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thanks a lot. Good morning, Jeremy. Jeremy, you know, great to see the progress on investment banking fees, you know, up sequentially and 50% year-over-year. I saw you on the tape earlier just talking about, you know, still regulatory concerns a little bit in the advisory space, and we clearly didn't see the debt pull forward play through because your DCM was great again. I'm just wondering, you know, just where you feel the environment is, you know, relative to the potential, and just, you know, where the dialogue is across the three main bucket areas in terms of like, how does this feel in terms of a current environment versus a potential environment that we could still see ahead? Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Ken. It's progress, right? I mean, we're happy to see the progress. You know, people have been talking about the depressed banking fee wallet for some time, and it's nice to see not only the year-on-year pop from a low base, but also a nice sequential improvement. So that's the first thing to say. In terms of dialogue and engagement, it's definitely elevated. So, you know, the dialogue on ECM is elevated and the dialogue on M&A is quite robust as well. So all of those are good things that encourage us and make us hopeful that we could be seeing sort of a better trend in this space. But there are some important caveats. So on the DCM side, yeah, we made pull forward comments in the first quarter, but we still feel that this second quarter still reflects a bunch of pull forward, and therefore, we're reasonably cautious about the second half of the year. Importantly, a lot of the activity is refinancing activity as opposed to, for example, acquisition finance. So the fact that M&A remains still relatively muted in terms of actual deals has knock-on effects on DCM as well. And when a higher percentage of the wallet is refi, then the pull forward risk becomes a little bit higher. You know, on ECM, if you look at it kind of at a remove, you might ask the question, given the performance of the overall indices, you would think it would be a really booming environment for IPOs, for example. And while it's improving, it's not quite as good as you would otherwise expect. And that's driven by a variety of factors, including the fact that, as has been widely discussed, the extent to which the performance of the large industries is driven by, like, a few stocks, the sort of mid-cap tech growth space and other spaces that would typically be driving IPOs, have had much more muted performance. Also, a lot of the private capital that was raised a couple of years ago was raised at pretty high valuations. And so, you know, in some cases, people looking at IPOs could be looking at down rounds. That's an issue. You know, and while secondary market performance of IPOs has improved meaningfully, in some cases, you know, people still have concerns about that. So those are a little bit of overhang on that space. I think we can hope that over time, that fades away and the trend gets a bit more robust. And yeah, on the advisory side, you know, the regulatory overhang is there, remains there, and so we'll just have to see how that plays out. Great. Thank you for all that, Jeremy. Just one on the consumer side, just anything you're noticing in terms of people just have been waiting for this delinquency stabilization on the credit card side? Obviously, your loss rates are coming in as you expected, and we did see 30 days, you know, pretty flat and 90 days come down a little bit. Is that seasonal? Is it just a good rate of change trend? Any thoughts there? Thanks. Yeah. I still feel like when it comes to card charge-offs and delinquencies, there's just not much to see there. It's, it's still, it's normalization, not deterioration. It's in line with expectations. You know, as I say, we always look quite closely inside the cohorts, inside the income cohorts, and, you know, when you look in there, specifically, for example, on spend patterns, you can see a little bit of evidence of, you know, behavior that's consistent with a little bit of weakness in the lower income segments, where you see a little bit of rotation of the spend out of discretionary into non-discretionary. But the effects are really quite subtle, and in my mind, definitely entirely consistent with the type of economic environment that we're seeing, which, while very strong and certainly a lot stronger than anyone would have thought, given the tightness of monetary conditions, say, like they've been predicting it a couple of years ago or whatever, you know, you are seeing slightly higher unemployment. You are seeing, moderating GDP growth, and so it's not entirely surprising that you're seeing a tiny bit of weakness in some pockets of spend. So it all kind of hangs together, in what is in some sense, actually not a very interesting story. Thank you. Thanks, Ken. Next, we'll go to the line of Glenn Schorr from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks very much. So, Jeremy, the discussion so far around private credit and you all your recent comments have been the ability to add on balance sheet and compete when you need to compete on the private credit front. I do think that most of that discussion has been about the direct lending component. So, I'm curious if you're showing more progress and activity on that front, and then, very importantly, do you see the same trend happening on the asset-backed finance side? Because that's a bigger part of the world, and it's a bigger part of your business. So I'd appreciate your thoughts there. Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Glenn. So on private credit, nothing really new to say there. I think, I guess one way the environment's evolving a little bit is that, as you know, a lot of money has been raised, you know, in private credit funds looking for deals. And sort of a little bit to my prior comment, in a relatively muted acquisition finance environment, you know, at this point, you've got a lot of money chasing kind of like not that many deals. So, the space is a little bit quieter than it was at the margin. Another interesting thing to note is some of this discussion about kind of lender protections that were typical in the syndicated leveraged finance market, making their way into the private market as well as, as sort of people realize that even in the private market, you probably need some of those protections in some cases. Which is sort of supportive of the theme that we've been talking about, about convergence between the direct lending space and the syndicated lending space, which is kind of our core thesis here, which is that we can offer, you know, best-in-class service across the entire continuum, including, you know, secondary market trading and so on. So, we feel optimistic about our offering there. I think the current environment is maybe a little bit quieter than it was, so, it's maybe not a great moment to, like, kind of test whether we're doing a lot more or less in this space, so to speak. And then on asset-backed financing, you actually asked me that question before, and at the time, my answer was that I hadn't heard much about that trend, and that continues to be the case. But clearly, there must be something I'm missing, so I can follow up on that and, maybe we can have a chat about it. No, it's great for you if you're not hearing much about it, so we can leave it at that. Maybe just one quick follow-up. In terms of your just overall posturing, on. You were patient and smart when rates were low, waited to deploy, worked out great. We know that story. Now, it seems like you have tons of excess liquidity, and you're being patient, and rates are high. And I'm curious on how you think about what kind of triggers, what kind of things you're looking for in the market to know if and when you would extend duration. Right. I mean, on duration, you know, in truth, we have actually added a little bit of duration over the last couple quarters. So, you know, that's one thing to say. That was more last quarter than this quarter. But I guess I would just caution you from a little bit away from looking at kind of our reported cash balances and our balance sheet and concluding that, you know, when you look at the duration concept holistically, that there is a lot to be done differently on the duration front. So clearly, it's true that empirically, we've behaved like very asset sensitively in this rate hiking cycle, and that has resulted in a lot of excess NII generation sort of on the way up in the near term. But when we look at the fund's overall sensitivity to rates, we look at it through both like the EAR type lens and short-term NII sensitivity, but also a variety of other lenses, including various types of scenario analysis, including impacts on capital from higher rates. And as I think Jamie has said a couple of times, we actually aim to be relatively balanced on that front. Also, given like the inverted yield curve, it's not as if, you know, extending duration from these levels means that you're locking in, you know, 5.5% rates. In fact, you know, the forwards are not sort of that compelling, given our views about some sort of structural upward pressures on inflation and so on. So, I think when you put that all together, I don't think that kind of a big change in duration posture is a thing that's front of mind for us. Super helpful. Thanks so much for that. Thanks, Glenn. Next, we'll go to the line of Matt O'Connor from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Good morning. I was just wondering if you can elaborate on, you know, essentially the math behind the ROIC being too high at 20 and more normalized at 17. Obviously, you've pointed to overearning on net II, and I guess the question is: is that all of it, to go from 20 to 17? And if so, is that all consumer deposit costs, or are there a few other components that you could help frame for us? Sure. Good question, Matt. I mean, I guess the way I think about it is a couple things. Like, you know, our returns tend to be a bit seasonal, right? So if you kind of build yourself out a full year forecast and make reasonable, just based on your own or analyst consensus or whatever, and you think about the fourth quarter, like, better to look at this on a full year basis when you think about the returns than, than the quarterly numbers, and you obviously have to strip out kind of the one-time items. And so if you do that, like, whatever you get for this year is still clearly a number that's higher than the 17%. So yeah, one source of headwinds is normalization of the NII, primarily as a result of expected higher deposit costs. That's, you know, we've talked about that. Part of it is also the yield curve effects. Some cuts will come into the curve at some point. And, you know, in the normal course, if you kind of do a very, very, very simple mental model of the company, you would have, like, expenses growing, revenues growing at some organic GDP-like rate, maybe higher, and expenses growing at a similar or slightly lower rate, producing a sort of relatively stable overhead ratio. But even if the amount of NII normalization winds up being less than we might have thought at some prior point, you still have some background, you know—you still have some normalization of the overhead ratio that needs to happen. So as much as, you know, our discipline on expense management is, you know, as tight as it always has been, there are—inflation is still non-zero, there are still investments that we're executing, there's still, you know, higher expense to come in a slightly flatter revenue environment as a result of, in part, the normalization of NII. And then, you know, the final point is that whatever winds up being the answer on Basel III Endgame and all the other pieces, you have to assume some amount of expansion of the denominator, at least based on what we know so far. So of course, any of those pieces could be wrong, but that's kind of how we get to our 17%. And if you look at, you know, the various scenarios that we showed on the last page of my Investor Day presentation, it illustrates those dynamics and also, you know, how much the range could actually vary as a function of the economic environment and other factors. Yep, that was a really helpful chart. Just the one follow-up. On the yield curve effects, I guess, what do you mean by that? Because right now, the yield curve is inverted. Maybe you're still, you know, breathing in the impact of that, but kind of longer term, you'd expect a little bit of steepness of the curve, which I would think could help. But what did you mean by that? Thank you. Yeah, I mean, you and I have talked about this before. I guess I sort of, I guess I don't really agree fundamentally with the notion that the way to think about things is that sort of yield curve steepness above and beyond what's priced in by the forwards is a source of structural NII, or, or NIM for banks, if you know what I mean. Like, I mean, people have different views about the so-called term premium, and obviously, in a moment of inverted curve and different types of Treasury supply dynamics, you know, people's thinking on that may be changing. But I think we saw when rates were at zero and the 10-year note was below 2%, everyone sort of, many people were kind of tempted to try to get extra, extra NIM, extra NII by extending duration a lot. But, you know, when the steepness of the curve implies it is driven by the expectation of actually aggressive Fed tightening, you know, it's just a timing issue, and you can wind up kind of pretty offsides from the capital and other perspectives. So there are some interesting questions about whether fiscal dynamics might result in a structurally steeper yield curve down the road and whether that could be, you know, sort of earning the term premium, so to speak, could be a source of NII, but, you know, that feels a bit speculative to me at this point. Got it. Okay, thank you for the details. Thanks, Matt. Next, we'll go to the line of Mike Mayo from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead. Hi. Jeremy, you said it's too early to end the overearning narrative, and you highlighted higher deposit costs and the impact of lower rates and lower NII, and DCM pull forward, and credit costs going higher. Anything I'm missing in that list, and what would cause you to end the overearning narrative? No, actually, I think that is the right list, Mike. I mean, frankly, I think one thing that would end the over-earning narrative is if our annual returns were closer to 17%. I mean, to the extent that that is the through-the-cycle number that we believe we're currently producing more than that. That's one very simple way to look at that. But the pieces of that are the pieces that you talked about, and the single most important piece is the deposit margin. You know, our deposit margins are well above historical norms, and that is a big part of the reason that we still are emphasizing the over-earning there. You're 17% through the cycle ROTCE on expectation. What is the CET1 ratio that you assume for that? I mean, we would generally assume, you know, requirements plus a reasonable buffer, which, depending on the shape of rules, could be a little bit smaller or a little bit bigger, and no small part is a function of the volatility of those rules, which goes back to my prior comments on, you know, SCB and CCAR. But obviously, as you well know, what actually matters is less the ratio and more the dollars, and at this point, the dollars are very much a function of where rules land and where the RWA lands and, you know, and obviously things like GSIB recalibration and so on. So, we've done, you know, a bunch of scenario analysis along the lines of what I did in Investor Day that informs those numbers. But that is obviously one big element of uncertainty behind that 17%, which is why at Investor Day, when we talked about it, you know, both Daniel and I were quite specific about saying that we thought 17% was still achievable, assuming a reasonable outcome on the Basel III Endgame. Let me just zoom out for one more question on the return target. I mean, when I asked Jamie at the 2013 Investor Day, you know, would it make sense to have 13.5% capital? He was basically telling me to take a hike, right? And now you have 15.3% capital, and you're saying, well, we might want to have a lot more capital here. I mean, at some point, if you're spending $17 billion a year to improve the company, if you're gaining share with digital banking, if you're automating the back office, if you're moving ahead with AI, if you're doing all these, you know, things that I think you say others aren't doing, why wouldn't those returns go higher over time? Or do you just assume you'll be competing those benefits away? Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I think in short, Mike, you know, and we, we've talked about this a lot, and Jamie's talked about this a lot. It's a very, very, very competitive market, you know, and, we're very happy with our performance. We're very happy with the share we've taken. And 17% is like an amazing number, actually. And you know, like, to be able to do that, given how robust the competition is from banks, from non-banks, from US banks, from foreign banks, and all of the different businesses that we compete in, is something that we're really proud of. So, you know, the number has a range around it, obviously. So it's not a promise, it's not a guarantee, and it can fluctuate. But we're very proud to be in the ballpark of being able to think that we can deliver it. Again, assuming a reasonable outcome on the Basel III Endgame, but it's a very, very, very competitive market across all of our products and services and regions and line segments. All right. Thank you. Next, we'll go to the line of Betsy Graseck from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, Jeremy. Hi, Jeremy. Hi, Betsy. So I did want to ask one drill-down question on 2Q, and it's related to the dollar amount of buybacks that you did do. I think in the press release, right in the slide deck, it's $4.9 billion common stock net repurchases. So the question here is: What's the governor for you on how much to do every quarter? And I, I mean, I understand it's a function of, okay, how much do we organically grow? You know, but even with that, so you get the organic growth, which, you know, you had some nice movement there. But you do the organic growth, and then, you know, is it how much we earn and we want to buy back our earnings? Or how should we be thinking about what that repurchase volume should be looking like over time? You know, I remember over at Investor Day, the whole debate around, "I don't want to buy back my stock," but, you know, we are, right? So I get this question from investors quite a bit of how should we be thinking about how you think about what the right amount is to be doing here? Yeah, that's a very good and fair question, Betsy. So let me try to unpack it to the best of my ability. So, in no particular order, one thing that we've really tried to emphasize in a number of different settings, including in our recent 10-Qs, actually, is that we don't want to get into the business of guiding on buybacks. So we're going to buy back whatever we think makes sense in the current moment, sort of, and we reserve the right to sort of change that at any time. So I recognize that not everyone loves that, but that is kind of a philosophical belief, and so I might as well say it explicitly. It was pretty clear in the 10-Q also, but I'm just going to say that again. So that's point one. But having said that, let me nonetheless try to address your point on framework and governors. So generally speaking, we think it doesn't make sense to sort of exit the market entirely, unless, you know, the conditions are much more unusual than they are right now, let's say. Obviously, when, for whatever reason, if we ever need to build capital in a hurry, we've done it before and we're always comfortable suspending buybacks entirely. But I think some modest amount of buybacks is a reasonable thing to do when you're generating your kind of capital. And so, you know, we were talking before about this $2 billion pace. We kind of trying to move away from this notion of a pace, but that's where that idea comes from. Let's put it that way. You talked about the 4.9, which I recognize may seem like a little bit of a random number, but where that actually comes from is the other statement that we made, that we have these, you know, significant item gains from Visa. And if you think about what that means, it means that we have, you know, post the acceptance of the exchange offer, a meaningful long position and a liquid, large cap financial stock, i.e., Visa, which realistically is highly correlated to our own stock. And so in some sense, why carry that instead of just buying back JPMorgan stock? So we talked about, Jamie talked about, as we liquidate the Visa, deploying those proceeds into JPM, and that's what we did this quarter. So that is why the 4.9 is a little higher, and it's consistent with my comments at Investor Day around having slightly increased the amount of buybacks. And you know, beyond that, what you're left with is my answer to Steve's question, which is that to your point about buying back earnings or whatever, you know, when we're generating these types of earnings and there's this much organic capital being generated, in the absence of opportunities to deploy it organically or inorganically, and while continuing to maintain our healthy but sustainable dividend, you know, if we don't return the capital, we are going to keep growing the CET1 ratio, the levels which, if you think about the long strategic outlook of the company, are not reasonable. They're just artificially high and unnecessary. One way or the other, that will need to be addressed at some point. It's just that we don't feel that now is the right time. All right. Thank you, Jeremy. Appreciate it. Thanks, Betsy. Next, we'll go to the line of Gerard Cassidy from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, Jeremy, how are you? Hi, Gerard. Jeremy, can you, I know you touched on deposits earlier in the call in response to a question. I noticed on the average balances, the non-interest bearing deposits were relatively stable quarter to quarter versus prior quarters when they have steadily declined, and this is one of the areas, of course, investors are focused on in terms of, you know, the future of the net interest margin for you and your peers. Can you elaborate, if you can, what you're seeing in that non-interest bearing deposit account? I know this is average and not period, and the period end number may actually be lower, but what are you guys seeing here? Yeah, good question, Gerard. I have to be honest, I hadn't focused on that particular sequential explanation, i.e., you know, quarter-over-quarter change and average non-interest bearing deposits. But I think the more important question is the big picture question, which is: What do we expect, I mean, how are we thinking about ongoing migration of non-interest bearing into interest bearing in the current environment, and how that affects our our NII outlook and our expectation for weighted average rate paid on deposits? And the answer to that question is that we do continue to expect that migration to happen. So if you think about it, you know, in the wholesale space, you know, you have a bunch of clients with some balances in non-interest bearing accounts, and over time, for a variety of reasons, we do see them moving those balances into interest bearing. So we do continue to expect that migration to happen, and therefore, that will be a source of headwinds. And, you know, that migration sometimes happens internally, i.e., out of non-interest bearing into interest bearing or into CDs. Sometimes it goes into money markets or into investments, which is what we see happening in our wealth management business. And, you know, some of it does leave the company, but one of the things that we're encouraged by is the extent to which we are actually capturing a large portion of that yield-seeking flow through CDs and money market offerings, et cetera, across our various franchises. So big picture, I do think that migration out of non-interest bearing into interest bearing will continue to be a thing, and that is a contributor to the modest headwinds that we expect for NII right now. But, yeah, I'll leave it at that, I guess. Very good. As a follow-up, you've been very clear about the consumer credit card, you know, charge-offs and delinquency levels, and we all know about the commercial real estate office. And you always talk about, you know, overearning on net interest income, of course. One of the great credit quality stories for everyone, including yourselves, is the CIB portfolio, how strong it's been in this elevated rate environment. I know your numbers are still quite low, but they're in the CIB, you had about a $500 million pickup in non-accrual loans. Can you share with us what are you seeing in CIB? Are there any early signs of cracks or anything? And again, I know your numbers are still good, but I'm just trying to look forward to see if there's something here over the next 12 months or so. Yeah, it's a good question. I think the short answer is no, we're not really seeing early signs of cracks in C&I. I mean, yes, I agree with you, like, the C&I charge-off rate has been very, very low for a long time. I think we emphasized that at last year's Investor Day. If I remember correctly, I think the C&I charge-off rate over the preceding 10 years was something like literally 0. So, that is clearly very low by historical standards. And while we take a lot of pride in that number, and I think it reflects... the discipline in our underwriting process and the strength of our, of our credit culture, across, across bankers and the risk team, you know, that's not. We don't actually run that franchise to, like, a zero loss expectation. So you have to assume there'll be some upward pressure on that. But, you know, in any given quarter, you know, the C&I numbers tend to be quite lumpy and quite idiosyncratic. So, I don't think that anything in the current quarter's results is indicative of anything broader, and, and I haven't heard anyone internally talk that way, I would say. Great. Appreciate the insights, as always. Thank you. Thanks, Gerard. Next, we'll go to the line of Erika Najarian from UBS. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. I just had one, cleanup question, Jeremy. The consensus provision for 2024 is $10.7 billion. Could you maybe clarify, for once and for all, sort of Jamie's comment at an industry conference, earlier, and, you know, try to sort of, triangulate if that $10.7 billion provision is appropriate for the growth level that you are planning for in card? Yeah, happy to clarify that. So Jamie's comments were that the allowance, the build and the card allowance, so we're talking about card specifically, we expected something like $2 billion for the full year. As I sit here today, our expectation for that number is actually slightly higher, but, you know, it's in the ballpark. And I think in terms of, what that means for the consensus on the overall allowance change for the year, you know, last time I checked, it still looked a little low on that front. So, who knows what it'll actually wind up being, but that, that remains our view. One question that we've gotten is, you know, how to reconcile that build to the 12%, you know, growth in OS that we've talked about, because it seems like a little bit high relative to what you would have otherwise assumed if you apply some sort of a standard coverage ratio to that growth. But the reason that's the case is essentially a combination of higher revolving mix as we continue to see some normalization in revolving in that 12%, as well as seasoning of earlier vintages, which comes with slightly higher allowance per unit of OS growth. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Erika. For our final question, we'll go to the line of Jim Mitchell from Seaport Global Securities. Please go ahead. Oh, hey. Hey, good morning. Maybe just one last question on sort of deploying excess capital. Seems like the two primary ways to do that organically would be through the trading book or the loan book. So maybe two questions there. One, trading assets were up 20% year-over-year. Is that you leaning into it or just a function of demand, and is there further opportunities to grow that? And then secondly, outside of cards, loan demand has been quite weak. And any thoughts from you on if you're seeing any change in demand or how you're thinking about loan demand going forward? Thanks. Thanks, Jim. Good question. So yeah, trading assets have been up. That is basically, you know, client activity, primarily secured financing related, sort of match book repo type stuff and, and similar things that gross up the balance sheet quite a bit, but are quite low risk and therefore quite low RWA intensity. So while our ability to supply that financing to clients is something that we're happy about and it's very much represents us leaning into the franchise to serve our clients, it's not really particularly RWA and therefore capital intensive, and therefore doesn't really reflect, you know, an aggressive choice on our part to deploy capital, so to speak. On the loan demand front, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I just don't have much new to say there on loan demand, meaning, to your point, loan demand remains quite muted, you know, everywhere except card. Our card business is, of course, in no way capital constrained. So, whatever growth makes sense there in terms of our customer franchise and our ability to acquire accounts and retain accounts and what fits inside our credit risk appetite is growth that's going to make sense, and so we're very happy to deploy capital to that, but it's not constrained by our willingness or ability to deploy capital to that. And of course, you know, for the rest of the loan space, the last thing that we're going to do is have the excess capital mean that we lean in to, you know, lending that is not inside our risk appetite or inside our credit box, you know, especially in a world where spreads are quite compressed and terms are under pressure. So there's always a balance between capital deployment and, you know, assessing economic risk rationally. And frankly, that is, in some sense, a microcosm of the larger challenge that we have right now. You know, when I talked about if there was ever a moment where the opportunity cost of not deploying the capital relative to how attractive the opportunities outside the walls of the company are, now would be it, in terms of being patient. That's a little bit, one example of what I was referring to. Right. Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks, Jim. We have no further questions. Very good. Thank you, everyone. See you next quarter. Thank you all for participating in today's conference. You may disconnect your line and enjoy the rest of your day.