Fed Reactions and Implications for Your Balance Sheet

In the final episode of the season, Vin and Zach jump into a discussion on the recent Fed Meeting and the outlook for rates in 2026.  The guys also probe how various rate outlooks could impact deposit and loan strategy, as well as thoughts on recent Q4 ALCO meetings, budgets, and positive industry margin trends.

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Transcript

On the Balance Sheet® S4 E12 – Fed Reactions and Implications for Your Balance Sheet 

 Transcript

 [Vinny, 00:07]

Welcome to On the Balance Sheet, season four episode, geez, Zach, 47? This is the finale for 2025. In kind of a unique episode, Zach and I will be kind of sharing our reactions to the Federal Reserve and their recent rate decrease, the third one of 2025, and talking more about the implications for banks and credit unions as they move forward into 2026. And Zach, yesterday at 2 o'clock Eastern time, we got news the Fed lowered rates by 25 basis points. Probably not so much a surprise, but I'm curious what your initial reaction was. 

[Zach, 00:44]

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because we're recording this the day after the Fed. We'll probably publish this early the week of the 15th. And I think what really struck me was the cut was priced in, right? It was a 90-plus percent chance of that going to the meeting. So, no surprise. The media seemed, if anybody was consuming the media afterwards, Bloomberg, CNBC, wherever you look at, there was a lot of discussion on, well, the Fed’s only got one cut in their dot plot for next year. And I think that this is one of those things that I think everyone mostly knows about in the banking industry that we've talked to, but that median is just that. It's an average. And there's 17 dots out there, right, I believe it is. And there's some pretty wide dispersion within that. And you move one vote one way or the other, and that becomes two cuts. Right, so I think the idea that, oh, the Fed's only going to do one cut next year, I mean, who knows, right? I don't think I know versus you, but I think that might be the headline, but that's not the whole story once you kind of peel back the onion. And I actually was walking down the hallway yesterday in the office, and one of our analysts was talking to one of our clients about a budget discussion about, hey, does this change our budget for next year with rates here and there? I was like, not really, because the markets still have a cut in June, in October, as of 12/20 on December 11th. So that can change, but it didn't change that much after this. I don't think the markets thought it was a big deal. What I think is interesting, Vin, you let me know what you think, is next week we have two jobs reports and a CPI, in the week after, or sorry, the first week of January, second week of January, there's another jobs report, another CPI. So, this could change dramatically depending on how those jobs and inflation numbers look between now and January. So if I'm looking at the balance sheet, I think we'll talk about it, but there are different implications here if the forecast of one, two, three cuts next year plays out versus what if things go drastically one way or the other in these next five reports, which are all coming out in like a three-week period. 

[Vinny, 02:46]

Yeah, no. Zach, my initial reaction was probably one of not much surprise because clearly the markets had priced that in. I think, again, reading through the tea leaves, it seemed like the markets are also sort of – kind of characterizing this as a dovish 25 basis point cut by Powell and the Fed. And I found that to be somewhat interesting. If you go back to the October meeting, I think he went to great lengths, Chairman Powell, to dispel the idea that the Fed was going to keep moving. And then they got some jobs data, even though the government was kind of shut down. And I think that was enough to scare the markets enough. And the markets figured out that they're going to go. You're right. You look ahead and you see the data points that are out there. We always think we have an idea which way rates are going. And geez, I kind of think back to really was this time in 2018. You go back to 2018, and the futures markets had rates moving, I believe, up around 100 basis points. And people kind of forget that in 2019, rates came down 100 basis points right prior to kind of COVID taking over and then rates kind of bottoming back out. But who knows? If we had a crystal ball, we probably wouldn't be here. We always kind of laugh about that. But I do think as you get into the budget season, do you get one, two, three, four cuts? Some of that might not be so important. The timing of it matters too. You know, I think when you just kind of go back and think about 2025 and what the Fed did – they were sort of quiet for call it nine months and then they got caught in September and we got three rate cuts. They did the same thing again in 2024. And so, there's a part of me that looks at it and says, well, the fact that they're sitting there saying – or the markets think nothing is going to happen for six months next year and then it's going to happen. This idea that there's going to be a redo of 24 and 25 out of the Fed, I don't know. Maybe you get it. Maybe you don't. Of course, now you got to sort of handicap what that Fed and the Fed leadership looks like when you move forward. There's no doubt that whoever replaces Chairman Powell is going to be somebody who is going to, right, wrong, or indifferent, probably champion lower rates. That doesn't mean that brings along lower rates. You clearly need a consensus. But I think those are all things that folks are juggling with as they kind of build out their budgets. It's interesting. You know, Some institutions do not include rate forecasts within their budgets and there's a lot of merit to that and others certainly do. But I think one thing's clear in the wake of this last Fed rate movement, I think it's – I've already had conversations with two separate institutions after the meeting and this morning. And folks are going to be reducing their top rates on CDs, no doubt about it. Some of them are a little gun-shy here through the last couple weeks of the year. And I think there are reasons for that. I think, quite candidly, some of these institutions have – they've beaten their budgeted earnings significantly in 25. And they've got some sort of dry powder laying around to manage their earnings. And there's no real merit in their minds to reducing deposit rates. But it's interesting, too, because I had somebody tell me this morning, well, XYZ Bank is out there with a four plus percent special and it's for four or five months. And I said, well, when you look at that rate and go back and think about when the Fed was at the apex of rates at 550, that's a six plus percent CD special. And how many of those do you remember? Not many. Right. So, think about it in that context. If you want to keep that relative spread to Fed funds on your top price deposit, understand what that really looks like. So, I think what you get out of the Fed is really anyone's guess. There's so many moving pieces, clearly with the dual mandate, whether or not inflation comes down under 2%. It seemed like there was an acknowledgement out of the Fed about that into next year. We'll see.  Yeah, I think their median forecast, it's got it like at 2.5 on inflation for next year. I've seen economists who are below 2, one of them who's friendly to our show. So, you know, who knows?

[Zach, 06:58]

Yeah, I think those data points – the next month will give some more clarity or as much clarity as you can get. But I was writing down a few things, Vin, as you were talking too, because I think I just came out of an ALCO meeting before this, you know, you did too. And while timing impacts budgets, I think the theme here is that whether it's a January cut or June cut, tactically, what are you doing? Or like, what are the things we're going to be doing with different deposit and loan pricing? And then the other component here that we don't control really, and the Fed doesn't either, is the long part of the curve. and how that might impact the loan side. I think I wrote a few things down. Think about over the course of 2025, 10-year treasury is down about 70 bps from kind of high to where we are today.  The 5 years down 90. So, think about loan pricing over the past year, right? And the Fed didn't cut till September, but we've been seeing kind of a chiseling of that over the course of the year. 6-month Treasury, what you were just talking about, CDs, it's down 70 bps, right, over the course of this year. And same thing with the 2-year, the 2 year’s down about 80. So, we didn't get a whole lot more slope in the curve. There's a little bit more slope, but it's not like it's an area where we're back to 100, 150 bps, right? Which is more normalized. We're still 60 bps, 2 -10. Fed funds, the 5-year is pretty flat, give or take. So, I think that's still an environment where we need some more cuts to be normal. When those come, who knows? We can just preach the futures market. But I think understanding for your bank or your credit union, what are we going to do when it happens and how does that kind of play out depending on if it happens January versus June, I think are important conversations. And the funny thing with the markets is when is Jerome Powell's last meeting, Vin? May? 

[Vinny, 08:39]

I believe it's April. There's no May meeting. He's done in May.  As far as I know.

[Zach, 08:42]

So, end of April. And June is the first cut fully priced in. The April meeting has like a, it's over 75% chance right now, but right now it's, it's right around that time is when the markets are handicapping that, but we'll have to see what happens through the holidays here. Cause I think, again, there'll, there'll be some more clarity and one little shout out. We had an awesome year on the podcast. We were very happy with our guests and the listeners were too, Lacey Hunt. What was the title of Lacey Hunt's first episode this year in January? Take the Under on the Fed cuts. Only, we only got 3. There are times when there were 7 priced in. So, I think that's certainly an interesting thing. But do you want to talk a little more about deposits and just what you've seen or anything else on that front from your budget and from your Q4 kind of meetings? 

[Vinny, 09:30]

You know, sometimes when you have these conversations with institutions that maybe don't have the deposit growth that others do, but the one thing that is interesting to me, and I wonder how this is going to play out and – I'm sure our folks on the deposit side, the experts, the Billy Guthries and the folks that handle our Deposit360 could speak to this more fluently. But this notion that banks generally just become more liquid as rates fall, the degree to which they become more liquid to me is a question. We're so accustomed to rates falling and banks and credit unions becoming much more liquid and deposits just flowing in. But the last couple of times rates came down, we went to a zero-rate environment. And so, there's no alternative, generally speaking, in those environments. So, then you get to this place where it's like, well, am I going to get as much liquidity back through the doors that I had back in the last two real falling rate cycles? Maybe not. Maybe not. And clearly the competition for liquidity seems as strong as it's ever been. So that is one of the things. Our forecasts and really surveying from webinars we've done is basically signaling somewhere from 4% to 6%, which – do we get that? I don't know. Is that noteworthy? To a degree, it is to me because the last couple of years, I think it was sobering when folks were sitting in their chairs like this same time a year, 2 years ago, budgeting deposit growth. There wasn't deposit growth on the horizon. So, it's back if – It's probably very similar to what we got 10, 15 years ago when it was just – you just woke up and 12 months later, you had 4% to 6% deposit growth. So, I think we're now resuming that historical trend, and I'm overly generalizing things, but if we can get some more liquidity through the doors, core liquidity too, that would be – obviously it's like saying the sky is blue but – I think that would be a real benefit to institutions next year. I think there's – I've been saying to some of the folks I work with that I think there's continued tailwinds for most institutions in the modeling that we're putting together. Most of these net interest income simulations are showing a continued upward momentum to projected levels of net interest income and, I guess, generally that will parlay to better bottom line income. The degree to which institutions are improving in the future, like in 2026, is not nearly as great as it was from 24 to 25. I mean, I've seen giant jumps. You think about these more liability-sensitive organizations who now have had some rolling over of some of their pricing. So, I hope that liquidity becomes less of an issue as we move forward. It certainly feels like it should be. Our forecasting is suggesting that it will be. So often and more recently in that last month or so, I've been asked multiple times, and Zach, you and I were joking about this offline, Hey, Vin, what is it that we need to do to grow core deposits? Is there a product that we're offering? And you kind of joked with me. You said, listen, if you're worried about product or rate, then that's probably the wrong way to go about it. I mean, certainly there are things that are nuanced that you can attempt and try and do, but – It's a holistic strategy that has to come together. And it's all facets of your business working together collaboratively to get real deposit growth. So, I guess the very long-winded way of saying, and you know I'm very long-winded, so I think you're going to see deposit growth next year. I think you're going to see cheaper costs of funds. And I think that should continue to catapult institutions into 2026. 

[Zach,13:23]

I totally agree. And yes, you can certainly drive deposit growth with a rate or some product, but it usually is very costly. And usually that's not driving tons of franchise value at the end of the day. So, I'm totally with you. It's the blocking and tackling the development of relationships and building that out in execution. And that's hard to do because I think everybody wants kind of a silver bullet, so to speak. But I think the other component here, Vin, that you're talking about with the margins what I've been having some, I think, some good conversations with clients is that most groups have seen margin expand over the last year considerably. The outlook going forward is still higher, but it's less so, to your point. And I've just been encouraging folks to kind of understand, like, what are the drivers of that? Is it the funding side is still kind of carrying the water? Is it the asset side? Because I think in a lot of cases, it's been both for a lot of groups. And you look at different clients, and I have 30 different clients, and if they're all going higher, they're not all the same. Some, the asset side is really slowing, but the funding side is still there. Others, the funding game is over until you get more Fed cuts. So, I think understanding too, like tactically, what do you look like for next year with that budget or with your projection in your models? If the Fed cuts 25 or 100, like, how does that change? And then are we running different iterations to understand where those points are, knowing that we have no idea when the Fed's going to cut, how that long end's going to move, et cetera. So, I think that's been a piece here. We're understanding those drivers. And then if the funding side's not a tailwind for you anymore, okay, what do we have to do there? Because if the loan side's coming down, now the margin that we thought was going up is now coming down, or maybe it's treading water. So, I think, again, it's understanding kind of those components has been really, really important. And the other piece here, I was looking at some of the deposit 360 data we have, because you mentioned kind of 4% to 6% deposit growth. The interesting part here, it's not in CDs. If we poll people, I think it's, oh yeah, it'd be in CDs and high yield money markets. Well, the high yield money markets is true, but of that growth, we're closer to 6% non-maturity growth, CDs down 3%. So, there's a bit of a mixed shift that we're expecting back. It doesn't mean it's going to happen for you. This is on average, but I think that's an important piece too. And on the cost side, if the Fed goes down 100 over the course of the year, which would be a little heavier than the expectation based on the markets, there's about 59, 60 bps of CD relief is what we're projecting here. On the non-maturity side, it's closer to 20. So overall, there's still relief coming, but there's not much relief if the Fed stays where they are. We need more cuts.

[Vinny, 16:00]

Well, kind of to your point, it's a really important question for folks to be able to answer as they do their budget. But understanding what's driving you next year, for the folks where they had no more funding cost relief, you could see that in the modeling because Q1 margins sort of jumped, right? Because everyone had all these CDs short repricing in Q1, Q2, same deal. You still saw spreads go, spreads go. Now when we're really in that 9.30 data period now, from 6.30 to 9.30, I didn't see a lot of spread expansion because that's the byproduct of now all your higher cost funding has churned and then you're basically repricing it at par or where it was. And so, you didn't see the spreads widen out. Those types of institutions, they're standing by waiting for the Fed to go again. But then there's the other side of that, which is the asset side for others who say you've got a ton of core deposits that can't go lower and aren't really contingent on the Fed. But you've got this legacy cash flow that's rolling over at rates 4, 4 ½, 5, and going in at 6, 6 ½, 7 in the model anyways. And that's just driving earnings forward. But then take that one more step further. Just in the last quarter, you know, at the end of the summer, we had a 10-year treasury kissing 450. That 10-year treasury is back down around 4. You know, and I think this morning it's 4 1/8 or something like that. But that reduced asset replacement rates across the board by, call it 3/8 to 50 bps in our models. So then when you compare year 1 to year 2 to year 3, it doesn't go up as much as it used to. So, a lot of different things that are going to influence what ultimately your year 2026 looks like. We continue to run like – a down 25 basis point scenario where we don't move any market or, excuse me, any of your deposit rates down, and you can see how your, your balance sheet behaves. I think it's a great little analysis. And then, we actually, for some folks will go a step deeper and, and quantify exactly what it is on your balance sheet that's driving that, I think that's really important to understand that. Because sometimes folks just sit back and say, we're liability-sensitive, falling rates helps us. It might. It should. But do you know why that is? And what if your assumptions are wrong? 

[Zach, 18:24]

And you need to execute. That's the one thing. The models are terrific, and we have lookbacks. And for a lot of groups, they're beating the lookbacks, which is great or they're right on those upward-trending NII projections, but you have to execute to your points. If you do nothing, here's the hole that we're in because of contractual repricings. But if we can cut CDs by the beta in the model or the high-yield non-maturities, for a lot of groups, that gets back to positive or at least it neutralizes a lot of that. So, I think that's an important exercise. I think on the CD front too, it's like – I have a lot of groups where the average that we see on CDs is like 365, 370. And our models say, hey, there's still relief in the base environment. And there's obviously more relief if rates go lower. But I have groups that are averaged at 420 and some are at 330. So, the groups at 330, guess what they're doing today? They're cutting CD rates because they don't want their CDs going from 330 back up to 360. The groups at 420, some of them are saying we're going to lag. Because we're already getting relief from 420 down to 4, say, or 390. Why do I have to go down to 350? Maybe I'm going to lag and hang out there longer. We'll see if the strategy works. But there's, we can talk averages, but there's very different strategies depending on what's coming off and what the incremental relief is. And I've had a lot of those different conversations. And keep that in mind because you might be a group that's – you're at 375 on a CD and you're, like, we're going to cut to 350. Why is XYZ Bank still at 4? They must be stupid. Well – maybe not. Maybe they have a good reason why they're doing that. Maybe because they have other things working for them and they can afford to do that. And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, too, that everyone's got very different costs rolling off here in the near term. 

[Vinny, 20:04]

Yeah. And, you know, I also – it's a little bit of a game of liar's poker, too, because I think even our team, our consulting group speaks with each other every Monday morning, 8 o'clock meetings and – I think you're going to see early January some folks get religion and start to move those rates down. I think right now, hey, look, let's just leave it kind of where it is. It's been a battle for the past few years. Let's not upset anything. But I think you're just going to start to see those rates move lower as you get into next year. Even if the Fed goes on hold for six months, they're going lower. Yeah. 

[Zach, 20:40]

Kind of get through the holidays and then reassess. And I think the CDs, a lot of folks don't do it mid-cycle or mid-month, but non-maturities, if you get a money market at 350 right now, I mean, that could be moved tomorrow. It could be moved 1/1. I get that. But I think a lot of folks are ready for this, and we'll have to see if the betas are sticky or stickier if they're, they move lower, but that's a big, big piece of that. And one thing, just to plug for, um, Joe Kennerson wrote an article recently. It's - check your email or your spam filter or folder or go to our website. “Basis Points Up for Grabs,” 4 ideas to gain an edge in deposit management. And I think it was a really good article talking about some of the things that Vin and I approached, but a lot of it was trying to figure out the growth side. If 2%, 3% normal is not what you want, what are the other areas you should be looking at? It's a good piece, and it's a pretty quick hit for those interested. 

[Vinny, 21:29]

Yeah, Zach, you know, and that puts a great bow on the deposit side. You know, I think on the loan side, one of the things that you just kind of hear over and over is the first half of the year was pretty slow for a lot of institutions. And now it's certainly, it seems like demand is back and, you know, you'll hear the common retort that our pipelines are refilled and et cetera. And there's more enthusiasm heading into 2026, I think, on the loan side than there was early on in 2025 when it was just a lot of uncertainty. So, folks weren't really looking for the credit, but it certainly seems like 2026 is going to be good in terms of lending. I wonder though, Zach, what are the key things that you're working with your clients to pay attention to as you move into 2026? 

[Zach, 22:14]

There's a number of things, and I think one's yield and one's volume related. And I'm not talking about like loan pricing and how to break down a deal. I'm more saying that when you're looking at budgets and projections, there's always a cash flow component. Hey, what's next year's growth look like? Low single digits for a lot of clients, I feel like. We did some surveys too. It's still like 5%, give or take, somewhere in there. Some obviously lower or higher depending on your market. Where does that even come from? Is that built up from, hey, here's our scheduled payments for the next year. Here's prepayment expectations. Here's a little range of that. Now it's back into the new volume we need. Is that reasonable? Or is it just, hey, we did 4 last year. We'll do 4 this year. So, I think understanding the cash flow components of this, because prepayments have been less of an issue or less of a variable, we'll call it, for the last couple of years because rates shot up. Nobody prepaid. A lot of groups have a barbell, right, where they have a lot of low coupon loans. A lot of loans they wrote in 23, 24, 25, which are 7s, 8s, and 9s, depending on where you are, or 6s, right? So, some of those might have some more prepayment or might have some more refinancing. So, do I understand the components of cash flow or, am I just making things up, right? So, I think that's one piece that – Trying to get folks to kind of look through that. The other side is the yield side. And we talked about on the NIM trajectory for a lot of groups or in our models, they're all going higher. The loan side for most is still going up to, to your point earlier, to a lesser degree. When does that tailwind become a headwind? So, understanding, is it down 50, down 100, down 200? For most clients I see, it was 200 a year ago. It's more like 100 now, or maybe a little bit less, depending on, kind of, where you are. So, I think we're talking in generalities, but those are 2 things. I'm trying to understand inflection points in just some of those so I can be better informed about the volume projection, but also the yield piece of it, because those are pretty darn important when we're talking about income. 

[Vinny, 24:11]

Well, yeah, and I guess what it really says is you probably – the reality is you probably don't need as much growth as you think because you've got such a buffer in terms of your origination rates today over what's rolling off. And then, okay, what's the logical extension of that? Well, we better ensure that we're being compensated on every deal we do. And I think obviously that's going to influence your liquidity as well. And so, then you come back to, well, do I need to be at 4% on CDs? So, so much of this is all sort of rolled in the bank’s planning for next year and kind of understanding what your tiebreakers are. Is it growth? Is it earnings? Is it both? Understanding exactly what it is and what the strategy is as you move into 2026. I think the good news is it's still all signs point to credit remaining very strong through the industry. We're seeing that in our numbers, and you see that nationally as well. So again, you start to add up. You say you should have more liquidity. You should have cheaper cost of funds. You should have hopefully more overall loan growth in 2026. Those are really nice tailwinds with the repricing of legacy assets. You should have another really solid 2026 if you're sitting here as a banker trying to prepare for next year. 

[Zach, 25:33]

I think a lot of those signs are certainly positive. And the credit side, again, things seem to be okay. Knock on wood. I think a lot of folks are preparing for some challenges here and there. But I think, I just kind of come back to, if we just look at kind of core loan deposits, what we're trying to do is make sure that these aren't in silos. And I think a lot of times they can be. And that's why we're such big believers in the ALCO process, bringing all these groups together. Because, quick example, I give that example of a group I have that has CDs coming off at 420 and the retail group saying, yeah, we can stay at 4. We're getting 20 bps of relief. We're rolling down the curve there. We're great. The lending side is saying, yeah, but I'm doing 6 ¼ commercial real estate now. It was 650 last quarter. It was over 7 a year ago. So, it's like you could be great on one side, but if the other side is showing some duress here, we may need to cut that funding side a bit faster. Even though we're getting relief, we may need more to offset the loan side. So, I think that's another conversation that we want to make sure that we're talking averages. Everyone's different. We get that. But making sure you're having the right conversations, and the right people are talking to each other, to me, are really important to make sure the next year is as successful as it looks like it could be. 

[Vinny, 26:43]

Well, that holistic approach, that's something that we espouse and we believe in very, very strongly. That's the heartbeat of your institution is asset liability management. You know, we're talking so much about tailwinds. And I kind of just mentioned I think we should see margin expansion in the next year. What are we missing, Zach? What is it that we're possibly missing as bankers?

[Zach, 27:08]

I thought you were going to throw in an Edmund Fitzgerald reference with the tailwinds there. 

[Vinny, 27:12]

No. 

[Zach, 27:13]

No, I think those are the keys. And I mean, the other thing I've talked through a little bit on the wholesale front is it's more of looking at the gaps between loan and deposits. And for most groups, the lending side is still beating the deposit side. I think for most groups, if we’re being honest, how much wholesale are we willing to use operationally to fund loan growth, to maybe do some leverage on the bond side if we're interested? Because spreads are better in a lot of areas. And how much do we need dry powder - for a rainy day, for contingency planning. Just understanding where those are because, for a lot of groups, your policy make it up as 30% of assets for wholesale. Most groups don't say, yeah, I'm pretty good at 29.9. Then I get worried. So, what's the actual trigger? What's the red light, yellow light, green light approach? I think, just having some of those convos because things can move fast. We've seen that. Yeah. And like, hey, what if loan growth is really great and it's really good deals and we've got to fund it with wholesale, but then we have a deposit hiccup or something. I just think understanding that, having that honest conversation at least puts you in a spot where you can make better decisions. And every answer is different. But that's the one area where I think wholesale-wise I've been having a lot of conversations, understanding, kind of, that capacity and what we're willing to do for income, what we're willing to do or hold aside for a rainy day. 

[Vinny, 28:18]

Right. So, in other words, you're basically saying that it's the ability to continue to grow utilizing wholesale and the comfort level with your management team and regulators. And, you know, it's interesting to me, too. We actually wrote a recent piece on regulation and this notion that there's going to be less regulation, which there may or may not be. And I thought Keith Regan, our colleague, wrote it. I thought he did an exceptional job. More or less, kind of, talking about doing the right thing when no one else is looking. And does it make sense that even if regulation is lessened to not know exactly what's going on with the entire risk profile of your balance sheet, if you're a prudent risk manager, should you just stop doing certain things? It doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense to me. But I would view that as a quasi-headwind as we move into next year because some folks are going to throw caution to the wind. And then that creates a scenario whereby just by definition, we have to compete with that. And so, folks might start doing some things, whether it's on the credit side, the pricing side, who knows? Maybe that's a potential headwind, an unintended consequence of lessened regulation. Which, by the way, I'm not somebody who's saying I want over-regulation by any means. But maybe that's something that's out there as we look ahead into 26. 

[Zach, 29:52]

It's kind of a “be careful what you wish for” situation. But I do think there's a lot of positive trends from the income side, liquidity-wise, capital-wise, credit-wise. So, I mean, there's always things that come up. That's why we have contingency plans and why we're having these conversations. We're trying to get the right folks in the room. But I think I'm pretty optimistic going into next year. And we'll get some more folks on next year from the economic side to give some overviews. Vin, if you don't have anything else, I do have – indulge me to give some thank yous to some of our guests this year. 

[Vinny, 30:24]

Well, before you do that, I would absolutely love to also have an opportunity to thank everyone, and also somebody who's in the background who does not get noticed or get any acknowledgement. Sometimes that's for a reason. It would be our editor, Dana Bernier. Dana, who also serves as – he serves as Santa Claus at the annual Christmas party. He's in his red sweater today. But Dana, in all seriousness, thank you very much for making us sound – a hell of a lot better than we really do when we do this live. And to all of our listeners, thank you for spending your time. I know there's a lot of different options. So that's it. I've said my piece. Have a great 2026, everyone. 

[Zach, 31:09]

That was very noble of you to thank Dana. He is the magician behind the scenes. We're doing this Thursday. If we want this out tomorrow or Friday, he'll do it. Maybe we'll give him a couple days, and he can get it up Monday or Tuesday. But he's the best. And I think we're already looking forward to next year's lineup of guests. We've got a number of them lined up. I mean, just this year, looking back, Vin, we want to thank guys like Lacey Hunt for coming on. Chris Lowe at the conference. You had Nathan Stovall from S&P who's always out. I think he's a terrific speaker and has a lot of knowledge on the banking industry, certainly. You think about we had Matt with one of his – after the tariff day, kind of his state of the state that we talked about there. Billy Guthrie came on to talk about the first Fed cut. That was an incredibly popular episode in terms of downloads and feedback right after that September Fed meeting. And then you think about our clients who have just been terrific, providing insights in their stories. And we continue to get feedback; they love to hear the stories of some of these folks through the years, like J.P. LaPointe from Needham Bank, Hal Horvath from Centerville Bank, Clay Adams up in Mascoma in New Hampshire. So, a couple of New England guys. Cole Watson out in Indiana, and then Dan Yates, who was out in the West Coast in some of his DeNovo discussion. We had a lot of incredible feedback on just those stories and even people connecting saying, hey, can we talk to these folks? I think it's been a really valuable component here. And I've been really happy to get some of that feedback. So please keep it coming. You know, other ideas, you know, Vin and I are always available for that, too. So, we just want to say thanks again for a really great year, 12 episodes this year again. So, we're at 47 total and we'll get, we'll get number 50 here in Q1 of next year, which is great. 

[Vinny, 32:55]

I heard number 50 will be an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean. Maybe we'll do it with a Mai Tai in our hand or something like that. 

[Zach, 33:02]

This is where we'll see if people are still listening to the podcast or not. This is the test. 

[Vinny, 33:07]

Happy holidays, everyone. 

[Zach, 33:08]

Thanks, everybody. 

[Dana, 33:10]

On the Balance Sheet is a podcast produced by Darling Consulting Group, DCG. All views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are solely their own and may not represent those of DCG. All third parties are independent entities and are not affiliated with DCG. This podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only and is not considered as advice. All views and opinions expressed are based on the information available at the time and may have changed based on current market and other conditions. For more information about DCG, please visit www.darlingconsulting.com or email us at info@darlingconsulting.com. Today's background music can be found on pixabay.com.

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