Maybe to start, Paul, you've been CEO now for nine months. Might be helpful just to outline your strategic priorities and how your approach may or may not differ relative to your predecessor. Right. Steve, it's great to be here. We're just talking. I think I've been to every one of these conferences since Steve joined the firm, so it's great to—always great to be here and see the conference get bigger and bigger every year. In terms of the priorities of the firm, it's really remained unchanged, and that's—we want to be the absolute best firm for financial professionals and their clients. And so the way we do that, I've been spending about 80% of my time on the road meeting with financial advisors, bankers, clients, and really getting their feedback on what are we doing well and what can we do to be even better partners for you, your team, and your clients. That's informed our strategy going forward. Some of the things that we're working on—technology. We spend about $1 billion a year on technology. AI is certainly an area of significant focus. We're using AI to not only create and gain efficiencies in the back and middle office. We say we want to be able to do more with the same number of people. We're still budgeted to grow headcount next year, but we are getting more efficiencies with the help of AI, automation, and technology, but also in the front office to help advisors save time with documenting meetings and prepping for meetings and those sorts of things. Also, at the end of the day, creating client-driven insights so they can provide more tailored and bespoke advice to a larger number of clients. So we're still in the early innings of AI, but one of the very first things I did as CEO was announce a new Chief AI Officer. He is now hired ahead of AI strategy from one of the large firms, and we're really dedicated, investing a lot of money, looking at third-party vendors, internal solutions that we need to build ourselves. Again, the focus with AI is not to disintermediate our advisors and go direct to clients like a lot of our other competitors, but really it's to enable our advisors to provide better and more personalized and more tailored service to their clients. Another initiative that came through with the feedback from advisors and financial professionals is just broadening the, continuing to broaden the products that we offer that they can offer their clients. And so Alternative investments is one. I see that before and after this presentation, you're speaking to alternative investment firms. Those are all great partners for us in terms of just helping advisors, especially for their higher net worth clients, provide alternative solutions. Now, alternatives are not for everyone. We do not have some aspirational allocation target that we want to hit with alternatives because really alternatives are unique to each individual investor, and they are more illiquid than public securities. And so we need to make sure that alternatives, to the extent that we sell them, that those clients are comfortable with the amount of liquidity that they would have in their portfolio by adding alternatives. They tend to become less liquid when you need the cash the most. When things are going well, liquidity is usually more abundant than it is when things are not going well and you need that cash. We are cautious. We're growing, expanding the platform, expanding the education, but we're not going to try to set a firm-wide allocation target. We are investing heavily in that platform, as well as investing in our Asset Management platform with Fee-based managed accounts, tax harvesting products, etc. Really just continuing to do what we've always done, which is put advisors and financial professionals, treat them like clients, respect the relationship that they have with their clients, and also just continuing to invest in the platform. It's working. You see it in our recruiting results. Last year, we recruited advisors with $421 million of production at their prior firm. $421 million. That's bigger than a lot of mid-sized firms in our industry that we recruited in one year. That was a record that was up 21% from the record we achieved the prior year. I know we will talk more about recruiting, I am sure. Retention continues to be good. It is a very competitive environment out there. So there are challenges with the larger deals out there from private equity-backed roll-ups, but retention, notwithstanding that, the retention remains very good. Just last week, we received the results from our Advisor Insight survey. We have 98% advisor satisfaction right now. 98% advisor satisfaction, which is the highest since 2014. So the morale of our existing advisors, most importantly, is very good. The interest from prospective advisors is at record levels. Our pipelines are strong, hitting into our fiscal 2026. So we continue to be a destination of choice, again, as Steve said, across all of our affiliation options. This is the fifth time you've been here. This is definitely the most enthusiastic you've sounded about the prospects for the firm. And as we think about the macro, with rates down, but equity markets up, IB appears to be normalizing. Some improvement in the capital markets trends. Speak to what you're hearing from the financial advisors in terms of their sentiment, their client sentiment, what it means for activity levels across both the private client side and even capital markets, if you can touch on that too. Yeah, just as recently as two nights ago, we had dinner downtown here in New York with about 250 of our advisors. I asked all of them about what are they hearing from their clients. And the equity markets are at or near record levels, depending on which benchmarks you track. While there are all these headlines around tariffs and government shutdown and other things, really the clients are very pleased with the service that they're getting with their advisors, with their portfolios, with the financial plans that they have in place. 97% of clients, by the way, in the same survey are pleased with the service that they're getting from their financial advisors. So very strong satisfaction. They're mostly optimistic about the markets, as are we. As a firm, our CIO, Larry Adam, I mean, as we look at 2026, we think with the benefit of lower rates and also tax cuts, that the economy, we're expecting 2% GDP growth next year. We are expecting a relatively strong economy. That does not mean that there will not be cycles and there will not be disruption in the markets at some point. We all know they come. We cannot ever time them. But in terms of the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, we are pretty optimistic. That's great. Maybe if we think about some of the context that you offered around organic growth and specifically, if I look over the last few years, you saw a little bit of a moderation the past two, although obviously revenue production has certainly been steadily improving, as you noted. This year, you've definitely seen some reacceleration. Paul, as we think about where you used to deliver high single digits, love large numbers, that's moderate to mid-single, still better than the industry, what do you think is an achievable target over the long term, even as your business continues to scale? I mean, most importantly, we have been leading growers in the industry consistently for many, many years. That starts with retention of our existing advisors. We focus a lot on making sure that our existing advisors are satisfied with Raymond James. And on that foundation, recruiting to our multiple affiliation options, the Traditional Employee channel, the Independent Contractor channel, Financial Institutions Division, and the RIA Custody business as well. And so the entire industry, some of the net flow percentages have come down. Frankly, a lot of it is just due to equity market appreciation. You have a bigger base, and so percentages go down even if the absolute dollars are the same. During COVID, there was a lot of net new sales in terms of organic growth of existing clients who were bringing more of the—they were getting relief money or they were not able to spend their money on vacation and ski trips. They were investing more with their financial advisors and really bringing in a lot of cash from other places to Raymond James. We launched the Enhanced savings program during the California banking crisis, and we grew that to $14 billion in a very short period of time because people were bringing in their cash from other places to get up to $50 million of FDIC insurance at an attractive rate. We have continued to gain wallet share. We are continuing to recruit very well across our affiliation options. As I said, our pipeline is very strong after a record year last year, and the retention continues to be good. Really, the only headwind we have in the NNA is some of the PE-backed roll-up money that is in the space now. They target some of the larger firms and offer checks that we cannot justify. And so we have had some of those issues and also some of the super OSJ where it is not a good fit for us and for them anymore. They go off to other platforms, which net-net is good for both them and for Raymond James. They are not usually the most profitable firms anyway on the platform by the time they make that transition. There are some offsets to the NNA percentages, but the quality of growth that we have relative to what we are losing is very strong. We are optimistic about the quality of the growth we have going forward. And we are also optimistic that some of this disruption in the roll-up space at some point will be a huge opportunity for a stable firm like Raymond James. Just in the last 18 months, what we are hearing more than ever from advisors that are observing all this noise around them from all these firms, which, by the way, by definition, their holding periods are, what, three to five years. There is going to be another period of disruption. Even if everything goes perfectly well, they are most likely going to have to transition and repaper and make some type of change. What we are hearing from advisors in the last 18 months is, you know what? I want to go to a firm that is permanent capital, that is long-term, that is stable. I'll make one more change for my team and for my clients, but I don't want to have to make another change three years later. And so being a beacon of stability in the industry and having the multiple affiliation options, but being a source of stability and strength, we get questions on our balance sheet all the time. The strong balance sheet, increasingly a differentiator, because, again, they know that a cycle will eventually come. They want to make sure that the firm that they're affiliating with and that they're entrusting their client assets with will be able to withstand a cycle. Having the strong capital position becoming increasingly important as we get longer into this bull market. Our value proposition just continuing to resonate more and more to advisors across the industry. It's really encouraging to hear. I guess the attrition you're seeing, I suppose, is less regrettable attrition, is from what I can gather. As we think about the momentum that you're seeing across the three different channels, is there any one particular channel where you're seeing outsized inbound interest or more meaningful expansion relative across RIA, IBD, and employee? I mean, it's really broad-based. I do a lot of meetings and dinners with prospective advisors. Just last night, I was having dinner with an extremely large team from one of the wirehouses that's interested in the employee channel. The other interesting thing about Raymond James that's unique is they might be interested in the independent channel 7-10 years from now. Those advisors that are looking to move to an employee channel with the option of potentially moving independent 7-10 years from now are really intrigued by Raymond James because they can do that all on the same platform. We have an advisor choice value proposition. The number of advisors that come and say, you know, I don't know if I want to be independent or not, but I like the idea of joining Raymond James. You have the culture, the capabilities that are very attractive to us as a firm and to our clients. In 7-10 years, if I want to move to independence, if we have retirements and succession on the team and the new generation wants to move to independence, we can do that at Raymond James. That is a very unique value proposition in the industry right now. That is also another appealing part of the platform. Paul, you've always been known to have a really unique and differentiated culture, which has enabled you to attract a lot of advisors without necessarily having to pay up or engage in some of the irrational behavior that we've seen. You noted that private equity was bidding pretty aggressively for some of these teams or properties. Are you seeing more rational behavior today? And are you feeling compelled to adjust the compensation for advisors, or are you sticking to the status quo? We ultimately have to be competitive, right? That does not mean we have to be the highest check near term. But between the upfront money and the long-term growth potential as we help them grow their business and be a source of stability, they need to see the economic upside of affiliating with Raymond James. So when the market becomes more competitive, we obviously have to lean in as well. We do not want to attract the advisors who are just looking for the highest upfront check. That is very clear, like in our value proposition. We want the advisors who want to be at the firm long term and earn, sort of optimize their economics over a long period of time by growing their businesses, by getting the payout over a long period of time and all the benefits that are offered at Raymond James. Because if you aggressively go after the advisors that are looking for just the biggest upfront check and they do not care about the cultural aspects and the capabilities and the ability to help them grow their business, then in 5-7 years, when that check runs off or gets close to running off, they are going to leave to another firm for the next biggest check. That is not good for us. We do not want that. The The advisor teams are looking for that type of churn. Now, if your holding period is only 3-5 years in a particular investment, that is fine for you. That might be perfectly aligned with your strategy, right? Because 7 years is you will be gone. You will be on the next platform by seven years' time. We are looking at this as a 10-20 year partnership and beyond. We tell advisors I had dinner with last night, I said the same thing to them that I say to every advisor. Please don't join Raymond James if you can't envision yourself being here for the rest of your careers. That means there's something that you, some doubt that you have with the firm that is not ultimately the best destination for you. We look at it as a marriage. We have got to be the absolute best partner for you, your team, and your clients. You have got to be able to envision yourself being with us for the rest of your careers. If you can't convince yourself of those two things, please don't join Raymond James or force us to prove that we're the best partner for you and your clients. They're not hearing that from a lot of other firms, particularly the roll-ups, because that's a very high bar to set. That is what we hold ourselves accountable to. We need to prove that to the prospective advisors that want to affiliate with us. It is true for prospective investment bankers too, prospective traders, prospective salespeople. We want this to be the last move that they make in their career. We want them to look back. But the thing that is most energizing to me when I travel the country is when advisors say to me or bankers say to me, the best professional decision I ever made was affiliating with Raymond James 5 years ago. The biggest regret I have is I did not do it 3-5 years earlier. I hear that every place that I go. Again, I travel 80% of my time. I hear that on trips. I hear that multiple times on the same trip. When the board asks, how are we going to measure success five, ten, fifteen years from now? Of course, we'll have financial metrics. Of course, those metrics will be impacted by externalities that we can't control. The real litmus test should be in 10 years or 15 years when we're going around the country visiting with our financial professionals, are they still saying the best professional decision, often with tears in their eyes, they're so emotional about it, that they ever made was joining Raymond James and the biggest regret that they have is not joining 3-5 years earlier. Hopefully what you're picking up on that's differentiated with Raymond James and really a big part of our strategy going forward is we're going to call it the power personal. The personal relationships really matter to us in terms of the personal relationships we have with our financial professionals and the relationships they have with their clients. In this world of all this fast money coming into our industry, all this increased competition, in some ways, while it's become more competitive in a lot of ways for the way we compete at Raymond James, we have fewer competitors than we ever had in terms of competing with those personal relationships, competing with that long-term vision of being the last home that you'll ever need to affiliate with for you and your clients. That value proposition was frankly more competitive 10 or 20 years ago than it is today because so much of the focus today is on the transaction, on the flip. That's not what we're about. So that we're, in some ways, while things have become more competitive, it's for us, the way we compete has become less competitive in a lot of ways. It's interesting how you framed that, Paul, because as I think about your long-term orientation, your unique culture, we have an advisor on the move tracker, and we look at the types of teams you're attracting. It's a lot of wirehouse teams that want to make that jump to independence, and you're their destination of choice. There was a recent M&A transaction that had some high-quality advisor teams, and you've been clearly the destination of choice for a lot of those advisors too. As we think about the PE consolidators and the roll-ups, those teams are typically ones that you haven't recruited as proactively. Do you still view Raymond James as a destination of choice for some of the teams that exist at those firms as well? Are you trying to broaden the net, or are you still focused on that quality bias? It's always quality over quantity for us. I think a lot of those roll-ups will become opportunities for us once they realize that it's not permanent capital and that there's going to be a lot of disruption in that space as well. But some of the most energizing recruiting meetings I have, I was in South Carolina a week or two ago, was with a senior advisor and his successor, who was younger in the business but growing rapidly. The senior advisor was really excited about Raymond James because he wanted a better home for his successor long- term. He's like, you know, I want my successor to join a firm that was like the firm I joined when I was his age 30 years ago. That is music to our ears because they understand the value of being partners with a firm that is going to liberate them and enable them to grow their business and focus on their clients. That is really the difference. They hear that difference. I mean, the folks I was at dinner with just last night, a couple blocks away, they said, you know, what we are saying is totally different than what they are hearing at their other dinners. That does not appeal to everybody. Again, we do not want to appeal to the group of advisors that are just looking for the biggest upfront check, and they are okay with whatever happens in the next 3-4 years. That is not who we are focused on. Maybe pivoting just to the discussion around cash, which is certainly garnering a fair amount of focus given the expectation for deeper Fed rate cuts. As we think about the past year where sweep cash has started to stabilize a little bit with Fed funds around this low floor handle, are we now at the point, Paul, in your mind where we should start to see cash balances grow in line with M&A, that yield-seeking behavior is starting to abate, just given how profitable some of these NII streams are? It's certainly something where we'd appreciate your perspective. Yeah, it certainly feels that way across the industry when you look at that sorting activity that now we're sort of getting to the point, especially with lower rates, where all the cash that was investable cash, or the vast majority of cash that was investable cash, has been deployed into higher-yielding alternatives. As we grow assets going forward, hopefully those cash balances will continue to grow with those assets. I always like to point to three or four or five quarters of performance before guaranteeing anything or calling it a trend. We haven't seen that trend yet across the industry. We've seen the trend change from declining balances to more stable balances. Across the industry, we still haven't seen the balances grow, you know full transparency. That is what we need to see next. I think the sort of the logic and the rate trajectory would certainly support that hypothesis that that's what would happen going forward. As we think about the NII trajectory and all the different inputs, on the last call, you were constructive on loan growth, certainly with lower rates or some expectation that SBL growth, which you certainly have exposure to, that could accelerate. We could see cash balances inflect. You do have some room to flex deposits. I know you guided to flattish NII, but even in the face of incremental rate cuts, is there a credible path to actually growing NII next year given some of those positive volume drivers? Yeah, I mean, our goal is to grow, certainly to grow NII over time, given all those factors that you just described. Whether it would happen in a year or so, I'm not sure. We don't try to, a year in the grand scheme of things is a very short period of time for us. With rates, depending on how much it drops versus how much balances grow and how much lending balances grow, I can't, it's hard to know. There are a lot of different variables in terms of what happens in the next year. Beyond that, we are absolutely confident that we'll be able to continue to grow NII. And the Securities-based lending, for example, which are fully collateralized with securities that reprice daily, they've grown 21% year- over- year in our fiscal 2025 year. 21%, Now t hat was just with the early cuts in the rates. Our pipelines for those are still very strong. We are optimistic that those balances will continue to grow. Our mortgage balances continue to grow as well. Because again, our mortgages, our clients are not the same clients that traditional banks are dealing with. They are on average higher net worth clients that are going to be a little less sensitive to every basis point in rate when they make home purchasing decisions or second home purchasing decisions. So we are optimistic that the bank will continue to grow its assets, supporting, driven by the support for our Private Client Group clients going forward, especially in a more attractive rate environment. Paul, lots of great tailwinds for the wealth management business. We are also seeing an inflection in capital markets activity. I know that that is an area where some pockets have been under-earning. Maybe you just speak to how you are thinking about normalizing margins and normalizing revenues in a more constructive capital markets backdrop. Yeah, our Capital Markets business, the investment banking pipelines are very strong. About 60%-65% of our M&A activity is financial sponsor-driven, either on the buy side and/or on the sell side. If you look on the sell side, because there were not a lot of deals done in the last two and a half years, there are a lot of companies that are being held beyond their original target kind of holding period. There are motivated sellers that now want to harvest those assets. On the buy side, there are still private equity firms out there raising a lot of capital. There is a lot of dry powder to deploy. There are motivated buyers and sellers. I think a lower rate environment will make that even more attractive for buyers to be able to finance at more attractive rates and maybe get the pricing to where sellers want the pricing so that continue to close that gap. Our pipelines are strong in investment banking. We are optimistic, notwithstanding some externality that we are not anticipating now with M&A and investment banking activity for fiscal 2026. M&A in that business in particular really is a big driver of margins in both directions. I think the very peak margin in capital markets was during COVID when both the equity side and the fixed income side of the business were at record levels and no one could travel. Business development, there were not golf tournaments or golf outings and no one was traveling. The margin was, I think, 27% was the peak quarter in capital markets business. That was very unique in that both equities and fixed income are at record levels at the same time because they are kind of countercyclical business. Certainly our bankers are traveling again, which is a good thing because it is a relationship business. Yeah, we think that that business can certainly be in the teens and mid-teens, but even higher. Last quarter, I think it was 17% with really strong capital markets revenues across our various businesses. Again, harder to manage to a particular percentage point, but certainly as M&A revenues pick up, that will drive margins. Paul, it was certainly encouraging too that you reaffirmed the North of 20% Pre-tax margin target even in the face of some rate cuts. I think that speaks to the improvement on the capital markets backdrop, certainly some of the volume tailwinds and accelerating NNA. You also talked about AI potentially driving greater efficiencies. Given you continue to scale, given, well, it does require upfront investment that should drive greater efficiency over time, is there a higher margin that you aspire to? And is there, over the next 5 years, do you expect that to be that target to potentially get raised over time? Not even a commitment, but just philosophically. Yeah, we update our margins basically once a year, Analyst Investor Day in May. All we said was we're not changing anything in light of what happens. There's so much that happens in between our Analyst Investor Days with the capital markets, equity markets, interest rates. If we were changing margins every time one of the variables changed, we'd be changing margins every week. Again, we're focused on investing in the next 5-10 years. We do not even love putting out margin targets for the next year, although I think we are certainly expected to from the street. But, y ou are. Yeah. There is a lot of puts and takes in the business. Lower rates, obviously, hurt spread income, which has a pretty direct impact on margins and the bottom line, but it also helps lending growth. It also can help M&A. Steeper yield curve can also help fixed income. We just finished our fifth consecutive year of record revenues and record earnings in very different market environments. I am not sure if you are aware of any other financial services firms that you cover that have five consecutive years of record revenues and earnings. I am not putting you on a spot, so you do not have to answer it. In the last five years, in different interest rate environments from zero all the way up to five and a half, in different capital markets environments where we had record M&A, record fixed income brokerage to very weak M&A across the industry, different equity markets. It just shows you the power of our diverse and complementary businesses anchored by the Private Client Group business, but being able to generate five consecutive record results, five consecutive years of record results in very different market environments. I'm not aware of any other firms that have done that. Maybe there are in our industry. It is really kind of a testament to just keeping clients and advisors and bankers front and center in what we do and having that long-term approach where we make decisions, investment decisions. We do not try to time the markets. We always get asked about taking duration in the securities portfolio on the balance sheets. Guys, that has nothing to do with clients. That's the sad thing about some of the firms in California that went under is they went under because they take duration bets. It had nothing to do with clients to try to optimize short-term earnings. That's not Raymond James. We keep clients first. We don't try to time the markets. We make decisions for the next five to ten years. That has served us very well since our inception. By the way, last quarter was also our 151st consecutive quarter of profitability. We didn't ask for TARP money. We stood on our own two feet during the financial crisis. We didn't have to be converted on a Sunday afternoon to a bank holding company to survive. We take a lot of pride in that because in a 16-year bull market, not all of those things are fully valued, right? They are valued. We always joke, no one cares about balance sheet until everyone cares about balance sheet. No one cares about FDIC insurance until everyone cares about FDIC insurance. The liberating and the great thing about our long-term approach of not trying to time the markets is that we feel like we're well positioned to thrive on a relative basis anyway in any type of market environment. That's not fully valued in a 16-year bull market sometimes, but it certainly is when things get a little tougher. As you said. I am also really glad I skipped over the balance sheet strategy and duration question then. I did want to press you, Paul, just on your outlook for M&A and your appetite to actually pursue more transformative M&A. You have done a couple of tuck-in deals. I think the last one you had done was GreensL edge. At the same time, we have this great scatter plot that shows capital ratios across different measures, tier 1 leverage, tier one capital, risk-based capital. You are always the clear positive outlier up into the right quadrant. So I wanted to gauge, as you think about managing that excess capital, your appetite to pursue transformative deals and across which businesses does that make the most sense? Yeah, we have a very strong capital position. Even our targets almost make us the strongest, I think, in the scatter plot. We're $2.5 billion of excess capital over our targets. We have plenty of financing capacity to do transactions larger than that. We are focused on M&A. We are focused on looking for opportunities that are a good cultural fit, good strategic fit. The financials have to make sense for both us and the sellers and our respective shareholders. But we are leaning into opportunities. I'm spending a lot of my time personally meeting with potential opportunities. Again, it has to meet the three criteria. And we are not going to do a deal just to do a deal. We are going to be patient. The best opportunities for us are ones where the sellers see the long-term opportunity, just like the recruiting story I told you, where the sellers see the best opportunity for their teams and their clients to be with Raymond James. They could see this being their home forever. Those are the best opportunities for us. Some of the flip transactions that you see where they're not focused on the long-term home for their advisors or their clients, and all they're looking for is the biggest upfront check, that's not the best fit for us. Our acquisition strategy is almost exactly the same as our organic growth strategy. And so we want to be the longest-term home, the best long-term home for the firms that we're looking to acquire where they make us better and we make them better. Our Morgan Keegan acquisition in 2012, our fixed income business is still run by the Morgan Keegan leadership team. The CEO of Morgan Keegan, John Carson, just retired last year. He retired two years ago, retired as our president of the company. And so when we do acquisitions, we do not slash and burn. We keep the leadership team. We try to keep the leadership team. We try to keep the people. We try to keep the clients. And that is a very unique approach in our industry right now, increasingly unique in our industry right now. Paul, maybe in the last minute here, just given your focus on long-term opportunities and orientation, and that also informs your investment approach, as we look out over the next five years, what does success look like for you? What are you hoping to achieve? I hope that five years from now, when I'm visiting the country, advisors and bankers across the country, they're still saying the best decision they ever made was joining Raymond James. The biggest regret they have is they didn't join five years earlier. If I hear that five years from now as I'm hearing today, then I know our leadership team and our associates have been successful. With the NNA to match. Yeah. Thanks so much for being here. All right. Thanks so much.