So today, I mean, you kind of answered this in a nutshell, but like what's at the top of the list as of right now?

So I would say M&A is kind of a juxtaposition with buybacks.

I think buybacks are hot on the topic of investors.

And yes, stock prices are high, multiples are higher.

So buybacks may be a little bit less important for the third and fourth quarter to company managements.

But I think part of the issue that we really should unpack is that why are we doing buybacks? Because banks have excess capital.

They're growing capital faster than they want to grow the balance sheets.

But who who who winds up doing better?

How much of a headwind is that? I mean, are we skipping over that too quickly?

Well, I think people had thought that the Fed would be easing, uh, once or twice as we got into the second quarter.

That obviously is off the table, so that is part of the headwind.

I think to some extent the uncertainty about whether the war is going to go away or still be lingering for the next four to six weeks also is a concern.

I think to some extent there was a lot of optimism built into this quarter from a trading perspective.

So now that you have a slight miss, uh, that push- pushes everybody now to be negative.

I think that's a short-run thing.

Are we entering bad volatility or good volatility? I mean, what do you expect the commentary to be from the big banks?

What are the other stories to follow?

Well, I think it was a very strong quarter from trading.

Uh, certainly the volatility, uh, in March was huge, and I think, uh, will contribute positively to earnings.

I think you may see some investment banking, the deals that got pushed into the second quarter, but second quarter's typically a very strong period anyways.

I think the guide for the next few quarters will still be positive.

The banks are enjoying the interest rate change that occurred, uh, during the month of March.

I actually think that's more of a positive.

Talk to us, is that gonna be a major theme when it comes to these earnings reports or the, at least the earnings calls from analysts?

When looking at opportunities in terms of, you know, taking advantage of sentiment, kind of really shifting and accelerating to the downside, would you be focused on the money center banks like Bank of America or some of the regionals, or perhaps some other, uh, tertiary type of name that can kind of a- allow one to express a, a positive view here and really get a, a, um, safe compounding cash flow positive story amidst the chaos?

So I think the regionals and the mid-size banks are really where the activity is.

I think that's where you still see consolidation opportunities ahead.

I think overall the value proposition is excellent for those names.

They're trading about 10 and a half to 11 times earnings.

There still are opportunities for, uh, those companies to surprise on earnings.

I think credit overall is still very solid.

So if we are to see, say that there is this risk that exists that we can't really get our hands at because there's, the- there's more opacity, um, with NDFI loans, then does that hang over the group still? I mean, you could make the case till you're blue in the face that there's no risk here, but can that question mark about systemic risk plague this group?