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Turning to Wells Fargo's performance. I'll make some brief comments about our results and update you on our priorities. I'll then turn the call over to Mike to review fourth-quarter results as well as our net interest income and expense expectations for 2025 before we take your questions. Let me start with some general comments.

Our solid performance this quarter caps a year of significant progress for Wells Fargo across multiple areas. Our earnings profile continues to improve. We are seeing the benefits from investments we're making to increase growth and improve how we serve our customers and communities. We maintained a strong balance sheet, we returned $25 billion of capital to shareholders, and we made significant progress on our risk and control work. We grew net income and our diluted earnings per share was up 11% from a year ago.

After I arrived, we reviewed our businesses and sold or scaled back several which reduced revenues in the shorter term and increased investments in others. We also made a conscious effort to diversify revenues and reduce our reliance on net interest income. In 2024, our strong fee-based revenue growth up 15% from a year ago, largely offset the expected decline in net interest income, reflecting these efforts. Our disciplined approach to managing expense levels has been consistent and an important part of our success.

We increased investments in areas that are important for our future and generated efficiencies to help fund those opportunities. Overall, expenses declined from a year ago, benefiting from lower FDIC and severance expenses as well as the impact of our efficiency initiatives, which have helped drive headcount reductions every quarter since the third quarter of 2020. We maintained our strong credit discipline and credit performance was relatively stable throughout the year and consistent with our expectations.

Average loans declined throughout the year as credit card growth in credit card balances was offset by declines in most other asset classes, reflecting weak loan demand as well as credit-tightening actions. Average deposits grew from the fourth quarter of 2023, with growth in our deposit gathering businesses, enabling us to reduce higher cost CDs issued by corporate treasury. We've been actively returning excess capital over the past 5 years, and that has resulted in average common shares outstanding decreasing by 21% since the fourth quarter of 2019.

This year, we increased our common stock dividend per share by 15% and repurchased approximately $20 billion of common stock, up 64% from a year ago. Regarding our strategic priorities. I'm very proud of the progress we've made on our risk and control work, and it remains our top priority, and closing consent orders is an important sign of progress. Early last year, the OCC terminated a consent order it issued in 2016 regarding cell practices. The closure of the disorder was an important milestone and is a confirmation that we operate much differently today.

This was the sixth consent order terminated by our regulators since I joined Wells Fargo in 2019. Our operational risk and compliance infrastructure has greatly changed from when I arrived and while we are not done, I'm confident that we will successfully complete the work required in our consent orders and embed an operational risk and compliance mindset into our culture.

Our results also show our progress on the other strategic priorities that we have. Improving our credit card platform is an important strategic objective and our [indiscernible] is clear. Since 2021, we have rolled out a total of 11 new cars, including four new consumer cards and a new small business card in 2024. Our new product offerings continue to be well received by both existing customers and customers new to Wells Fargo with over 2.4 million new credit card accounts opened in 2024.

We've done this while maintaining our credit standards. The momentum in this business is also demonstrated by strong credit card spend, up over $17 billion from a year ago. In our auto business, we announced a multiyear co-branded agreement where we will be the preferred purchase finance provider for Volkswagen and Audi brands, in the United States, starting in the first half of this year. We continue to reposition our home lending business as we execute the strategic direction we announced in early 2023. We've reduced headcount by 47% and the amount of third-party mortgage loan service by 28% since the announcement as we continue to streamline this business.

The business is more profitable today and opportunities remain to improve. After several years of little to no growth, as we focused on satisfying the requirements of our consent orders, we are starting to generate growth and increase customer engagement in our consumer, small, and business banking segments. We had a more meaningful growth in net checking accounts in 2024. And importantly, most of that growth came in the form of more valuable primary checking accounts. We had over 10 billion debit card transactions last year, up 2% from a year ago, the highest annual volume in our history.

We accelerated our efforts to refurbish our branches, completing 730 in 2024. We continue to make enhancements to our mobile app, including making it significantly easier to open accounts, and in the fourth quarter, over 40% of consumer check accounts were up additionally. We grew mobile active customers by 1.5 million in 2024, up 5% from a year ago. Our customers are also increasingly using Zelle, and we have over $1 billion in sales transactions in 2024, up 22% from a year ago.

We introduced Wells Fargo Premier to better serve our affluent clients, and we're starting to see some early benefits from the enhancements we've made. We increased the number of premier bankers by 8% and branch-based financial advisers by 5% from a year ago with a focus on increasing the number of bankers and advisers in top locations. We have enhanced our customer relationship management capabilities for our bankers and advisers. This is increased collaboration, driving $23 billion in net assets since the Wealth and Investment Management Premier channel last year.

Deposit and investment balances for Premier clients grew steadily throughout the year and increased approximately 10% from a year ago. This remains a significant area of opportunity for us. Turning to our commercial business. In the commercial bank, we're focused on adding relationship managers and business development officers in underpenetrated and growth markets to drive new client acquisition, future revenue growth, and we expect to hire even more in 2025.

We created a strategic partnership with Centerbridge Partners and introduced overland advisers to better service our commercial bank customers with the direct lending product. We have targeted our investment banking capabilities towards our commercial banking clients. We're still early in these efforts, but we're starting to see results including our investment banking market share with our commercial banking clients increasing by approximately 150 basis points in 2024, which includes helping some clients access capital markets for the first time.

Additionally, we've been working closely with our clients to support their M&A activity, driving higher M&A-related revenue. The opportunity remains significant. We continue to make investments in talent and technology to strengthen corporate investment banking. More than 75 new hires joined CIB since 2019, with many of these in key convergent product groups within trading and banking, and our revenue and share in many important areas has increased including in our markets business, where we've grown our U.S. market share, including credit trading, commodities, and our equity cash and derivatives business.

We also continue to make steady progress in growing our FX business with strong growth in both our institutional client base and volumes in 2024. We also grew our U.S. market share in investing banking with share gains in debt and equity capital markets and increased revenue in our advisory business in 2024. We entered 2025 with a solid pipeline in both Capital Markets and Advisory, while the market conditions can always change. I feel great about our progress and continue to believe we're just beginning to see the benefits of our investments.

We've also continued to exit or sell businesses that are not in sync with our strategic priorities. And last year, we entered into a definitive agreement to sell the non-agency third-party servicing segment of our commercial mortgage servicing business. More broadly, the U.S. economy has performed very well and remains strong, and lower inflation and unemployment bolster the economy well into 2025.

We are predominantly a U.S. bank, we succeed when the country succeeds. So the incoming administration's support of U.S. businesses and consumers gives us optimism as we look forward. Additionally, the incoming administration has signaled a more business-friendly approach to policies and regulations, which should benefit the economy and our clients.

Mike will talk more about our expectations for 2025. But as we start the new year, I'm enthusiastic about the opportunities we have to drive higher returns across our businesses by growing revenue and managing expenses. I'm proud of the progress we made in 2024. I want to conclude by thanking everyone who works at Wells Fargo, for their hard work for what they do every single day to support our customers, clients, and communities. I'm excited about the momentum we're building and all that we can accomplish together in 2025.

Wells Fargo’s 2025 outlook according to its CFO

Looking ahead to 2025, CFO Michael Santomassimo expects net interest income to grow modestly by 1% to 3%, with loan growth driven by corporate and consumer segments. The company plans to continue its efficiency initiatives, targeting $2.4 billion in gross expense reductions while investing in technology and infrastructure. Overall, Wells Fargo is focused on sustaining growth, improving returns, and maintaining capital strength.

Wells Fargo execs questioned on rate sensitivity and trading performance

During the earnings call, CFO Michael Santomassimo addressed questions about the bank's rate sensitivity and trading results.

On rate sensitivity, Deutsche Bank’s Matthew O’Connor asked about the impact of potential rate changes on Wells Fargo’s net interest income. Santomassimo noted that the bank is still marginally asset-sensitive, but its balance sheet has become less sensitive over the past few quarters. He highlighted that if rates hold higher than expected, it could provide a slight positive, but overall, the bank’s rate sensitivity has reduced.

O’Connor also inquired about Wells Fargo’s trading performance, which showed a year-over-year decline. Santomassimo explained that last year had been a particularly strong quarter, while this year’s performance was weaker in comparison. He emphasized that there were no unusual factors behind the results and that the bank’s more domestic focus and disciplined risk approach in trading set it apart from global peers.

CEO Charlie Scharf added that Wells Fargo’s trading business “is materially smaller than the biggest folks out there” and that “the complexity of the products is very, very different.”

Wells Fargo Q4 earnings call Q&A

Operator: Our first question comes from John McDonald of Truist Securities.

John McDonald, Truist Securities, Research Division: Mike, I was hoping you could unpack the deposit expectations embedded in Slide 18 and the NII outlook. You talked about stabilization of retail volumes and mix. Just kind of wanted to get a little more detail about what you're assuming for retail deposit growth mix and how that plays into the paydown of higher cost borrowings throughout the year in your plan?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes, sure. Thanks, John, and welcome back and welcome to your new seat. Look, I think as we've sort of talked about now, I guess, for the last three or four quarters, we've been seeing less and less migration out of noninterest-bearing to interest bearing. You got to look through some of the product consolidations we did in the third quarter. So there's some noise that we talked about last quarter. But so we've seen continued sort of stabilization of the mix between noninterest-bearing and interest-bearing. And so that's sort of helpful as you go into this year, and we expect that to continue as we look forward and then start to see absolute growth across the consumer franchise.

As you know, in the interest-bearing products in the consumer side, pricing hasn't really moved much through the cycle. And so you're not seeing standard pricing change much, but you are seeing the promotional savings and CD rates continue to come down over the last 90, 120 days as rates have started to move. And so we would expect that that mix to stabilize. We expect some absolute growth, and we don't expect pricing pressure to come through on the consumer side.

John McDonald, Truist Securities, Research Division: Okay. Got it. And then just wanted to shift gears and ask about credit card profitability. When you're in growth mode, credit card experience is a drag from accounting on the upfront acquisition costs and provision. Where are you on card profitability now? Is that an upside driver to ROE? Is more of the balances roll off teasers and some of that upfront expense?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes, certainly is. I think as you look backwards a little bit, we started launching the new products 3.5 years ago. So the first of the vintages came on starting in August — July, August, a few years ago. And so we're just starting to kind of see those earliest vintages mature and become more profitable. So we're still early days in terms of seeing that profitability really come through in the P&L. I'd say, obviously, the factors you got to think about as you sort of look through that is the credit box and the credit performance, that's all behaving right on top of what we would have modeled. So we're not seeing any concerns flow through from what we modeled across all of the different new products.

And we're seeing, as Charlie highlighted in his script, we're seeing good new account growth, continue across the different products there. And so it's just a matter of time for that to really more meaningfully come into the P&L. It really hasn't contributed much at all yet as you sort of look at it, but it will start to come through over the next year or two.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: And John, this is Charlie. The only thing I would add, I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, but the two places that we think of as where we've already taken actions and assist execution now, which will improve profitability. One is card, as you pointed out. And the second I referenced is we're still not at the level of profitability where we should be in home lending, just given as we continue to wind down that servicing book. And so we think those two things will be helpful for us as we look forward.

Operator: The next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala of Bank of America.

Ebrahim Huseini Poonawala, BofA Securities, Research Division: I guess I just wanted to go back, maybe, Charlie, to something you talked about back in December on the back of the lifting of the OCC consent order. As we think about just the ROE trajectory for the bank, it will be useful if you can maybe give some tangible examples of things that you've been able to do post the lifting of the consent order in terms of incenting branch employees and where in the balance sheet or in the P&L, we should expect that to show up maybe as early as 2025.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. Ebrahim, it's Mike. Maybe I'll start and Charlie can chime in if he wants to add. I think what you're referencing just to make sure everyone is clear, is the sales practices consent order, they got lifted last February. As part of the work we had to do when that came on, we dialed back much of what you would expect to see in the branch system around incentive plans and sales goals and the like and to make sure that we built—rebuilt the control framework and all of those things that we would do there in a way that would make sure that the problems of the past don't reoccur.

And so as we saw that consent order go away, we've been able to more fully roll out a standard sort of incentive framework across the branches. We have been piloting it for a while in a small subset. And as you would expect, you would see different performance and better performance in those pilot branches, and that's across new checking growth, credit card accounts and the like. And so we're still in the early days to see the benefits of that system be put in place because it got rolled out throughout 2024. And so we would expect to kind of see the results start to come through more meaningfully over the near term, medium term.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Maybe just a little more color to what Mike said. I think again, if you think back, it was hugely important that that we satisfied the obligations that existed in that consent order and that we were comfortable with the control environment that existed. And so we took away, as Mike said, a whole series of things. It's not just one thing. It was compensation, it's recording goals, just the whole way we manage the system, as we were building out everything that would make us and our regulators comfortable as we managed the system in the future, similar to the way other people manage their system that if someone were to be doing something that wasn't appropriate that we had the right controls and reporting in place to catch it.

So it took a long time to build that out. But to have the confidence that we could add back a lot of these management mechanisms that you have in place. And so no one individual thing is earth-shattering. But when you take compensation, when you take reporting when you take management routines, when you take all those things and put them together, at the same time, you're monitoring all the controls that you've built that's what gives us the confidence to go forward with the system that we think can attract more customers and do more with our existing customers, but within a very tightly controlled framework that we feel comfortable relative to how we manage the risk that's there.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Ebrahim, actually, Charlie and a lot of other folks here have seen this before, and we're confident we're going to get the results we think out of it.

Ebrahim Huseini Poonawala, BofA Securities, Research Division: That's helpful color. And I guess, just maybe following up—so thanks Mike for running through the expense investment priorities. As we think about the severance charge in the fourth quarter, and run way to extract additional efficiencies relative to $54 billion expense guide, how should we think about like are we getting to a point where some of the low-hanging fruit is done and expenses generally move higher given the investments and we should at least anticipate positive operating leverage on the way forward? Or do you still see opportunities to meaningfully cut costs, make things more efficient, especially in the consumer bank.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. I think, Ebrahim, as we sort of look at what you see there and what we're doing in 2025, it's no different than—the thinking is no different than it's been now for the last four or five years that we've both been here. I think as you look at the company, we still feel like there's a significant amount of opportunity to drive efficiency, and that's what you see in 2025. And I know we've used this analogy a lot, but it is just like peeling an onion. And as you sort of look at the next layer down, you find more efficiency, you bring better technology, you bring better automation, which, by the way, saves us money, but also in a lot of cases, improves the client experience for our customers. And—and so we—as we come in every day, we still think about it the same way that we've been thinking about for a while, and that's what you see in the expectations for this year.

Operator: The next question comes from John Pancari of Evercore.

John G. Pancari, Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division: Good morning. On the NII outlook, I know you said it includes modest loan growth expectation for 2025. I just want to see if you can elaborate a little bit on how we could think about that in terms of level and trajectory? Should it be near GDP? Or how should we think about that? And then can you—in addition to the sizing of the most likely drivers, maybe can you also give us a little bit of color on the pace of expected incremental runoff of balances as you look at the growth outlook?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. So maybe I'll start on the loan side. So as I said in my commentary, like we're expecting to see a little bit more of it as we get to the middle and second half of next year. So—so we may see a little bit in the first half, but it's not be more meaningful as we go later in the year. I would think of it as like low to mid-single digits depending on the category of loans. But obviously, some of that will be dependent upon the overall backdrop that we're in.

As you look at the consumer side of the picture, mortgages will likely continue to decline a little bit given sort of the rate environment we're in. We did see a little bit of incremental refinance activity in the fourth quarter. But now with rates back up, that seems to be back down again. We should see some card growth as we go through the year, and we should start to see some growth in the auto portfolio as well. On the commercial side, some of it will be new account new client growth as we go through the year. We've been adding bankers across different categories. We do expect to see some growth in the markets business as well to drive some loan growth.

And so it should come from a lot of—a little bit from a lot of different areas across the population, but I would expect to see that a little bit more as we go into middle and second half of the year.

John G. Pancari, Evercore ISI Institutional Equities, Research Division: Great. And then separately on capital, 11.1% CET1 pretty solid and you still bought back about $4 billion this quarter. How should we think about the buyback appetite as you look at 2025, assuming that you do see some improvement in organic growth opportunities, how could that influence your pace of buyback.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. I mean, look, it's the standard sort of waterfall of decision-making that goes into it, right? If we've got good organic growth opportunities across loans and other categories, we're going to serve customers, that's always first. We still have the asset cap in place. So there are some limits to that. we'll look at all the different risks that are out there across the different categories of items that we got to be concerned about. And then buybacks will kind of be the rest. And given we've got the after cap and given we've got limited organic growth depending on the quarter you're in, I think you'll see us continue to return capital back to shareholders like we've done now for the last number of years. At this point, we don't believe we need to be higher than where we are from a CET1 percentage. And so we'll manage that based on those opportunities and those decisions that we talked about.

Operator: The next question comes from Erika Najarian of UBS.

Erika Najarian, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division: Clearly, the way the stock has reacted the message from your shareholders has been an embrace of Wells Fargo was more than a remediation story. And thinking about the return improvement even beyond the asset cap resolution and the consent order. And I guess to that end, Charlie and Mike, you have a medium-term ROE target of 15%. In 2024, you generated almost 13.5%. And by your own commentary, you still have places like Card and Home Lending where your profitability should improve from here. You're carrying excess capital, you're under the asset cap. Obviously, you're making great efforts in CIB in terms of really using your balance sheet to generate even more fees and off of your relationships. And as we think about that 15%, especially in the context of you have 1 money center that has to hold more capital than you that has a 17% target and another money center that has to hold more capital to go than that 15% target. I guess, I'm wondering if your shareholders are thinking about fully realized wells beyond the remediation story, what is the true natural return of this business?

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Yes. Let me—Eric, thanks for that. I think I guess what we would say is—well, let me just repeat what we've said in the past, right, which is when we look at our businesses, we look at each one individually and we compare ourselves to the best people out there in terms of performance. And it's both returns and growth that we look at because, again, other than our home lending business and I would say the auto business generally, we do expect that our businesses, given the quality should be growing at rates commensurate with some of the best out there in addition to having some of the strongest returns.

So when you compare us to other people, right, you've got to look at the mix of business, you got to look at the size of our different businesses versus others. But when we think about where we ultimately what our aspirations are, it is based upon where the others are by business and what our business mix looks like relative to how we think about our own targets and what the timing is, I guess we would just say, we got to think about it one step at a time. And we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We've said we want to get to 15%. We're close, but we're not there. And so we want to achieve that for sure. We have to get out of these orders that we still have that do constrain us. And so there's a point at which we've said that not just yourself, but we, too, will address where we think we go from the 15%, but in due time.

Operator: The next question comes from Betsy Graseck of Morgan Stanley.

Betsy Lynn Graseck, Morgan Stanley, Research Division: So two questions. One, just to follow up on the last question that Eric asked on the drivers. We're in the last mile. So congratulations we're in the last mile to the 15%. And are you thinking about that last mile as being driven by revenue growth happening faster in the businesses that have the higher returns? Or are there still expenses to be cut out such that the expense ratio and the expense focus is what's going to drive that?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Betsy, it's Mike. I'll start. I'll go back to what we said at some point last year as a reference point, but obviously, there's multiple paths to get there depending on sort of the environment and what happens. But—but if you look at where we were talking about earlier in the call, you have the credit card business, you have the home lending business as those 2 things get to sort of more mature—more mature return profile in the card business and we get to sort of the profitability improvement we want to see in home lending. You can make your own assumptions. But those 2 things alone probably get you pretty darn close. You can then look at growth we're getting in the investment bank in capital markets and wealth. And so there's lots of different combinations that get you there. And that's why we feel very confident that we'll get to that 15% and then reasonable people can have different opinions on exactly what gets you there first. But I think there's multiple paths to get there.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Betsy, for a second, if I can. If you just look at what we've said for next year, right, we've given you an expense number in terms of what our expectations are, which are pretty close to what they are this year. And so we've given you our NII guidance, which is also up from the prior year to make your own assumptions on credit and fee income and you'll get a sense for what we—to your question if it's expenses or revenues, how we think we're going to get there. I mean in terms of what those dynamics look like.

The one thing I just do want to say though, when we think about returns, we feel really great about the prospects here. But as I said, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We've been very, very careful to make sure that we've got the latitude to spend whatever it is we need on all of the risk and operational things. And so that's still the case. And so even though we feel great about the progress and I've tried to give an indication of how we feel about that. We have to maintain that flexibility because that is a gating factor and the top priority.

The second thing is, we've been very careful not to provide multiyear guidance for expenses. And that's because as we continue to peel the sending back, we find opportunities. We tried to also lay out in the presentation the point that we're not just reducing expenses and funding inflationary increases across the place, we're increasing the level of investment in technology and other things. And as we look towards the success that we have in different parts of the company as we invest. So as we see the positive results, we want the ability to make those decisions at each point in time as to how much more we want to invest.

So yes, if we didn't increase the level of investment or if we kind of cap that out, you could sit here and say, yes, lots of things – margins we continue to expand, returns would expand, you could get to some pretty significant numbers. But we're building the company for the future. And as long as we see the payoffs there, we want the latitude to do that. So we're very conscious of what our investors expect from us. We're very conscious of what we think the franchise can produce, but we do intend to build both a higher eturning at a higher growth franchise, and you're just starting to see that. And how that plays out from a timing perspective, that's what we're trying hard not to get boxed in on.

Betsy Lynn Graseck, Morgan Stanley, Research Division: Totally get it, and it does feel like there's a bit of a shift at the margin to Rev led profitability growth, in my opinion, which is great, a lot of low-hanging fruits already out on the expense side. And then just lastly, on credit card. I understand get it more mature. There was the announcement during the quarter, I believe, that Ray Fisher is stepping down. Could you help us understand what drove that decisioning? And new yes, and new management and what I assume it's going to be the same goals and everything, but if we could just have a few thoughts on that whole situation. Thank you.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Yes, yes, yes. So listen, Ray, I've known Ray a long time. We've worked together for many, many years. When I came to, Wells, literally, the—I think it was the first or second day I was at Wells, the person who was running the card business told me that they had already accepted another job outside the company. So if that had nothing I wasn't a part of that change. That was a decision that was made. And so ask Ray to join us and he's done a fabulous job. Ray, I think—I don't know his exact age. I want to say.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: We give away [indiscernible], but he's old enough to deserve to retire. Yes.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Very well—very well put. He's done a great job. And so this is a very natural progression and something that we've talked about relative to his timing and what his expectations are. So—we've got a great team in place that he's built out. We've recruited a great leader from outside the company, [indiscernible], who joins us, I believe, sometime in February. And the strategy is the same, nothing is going to change. We've had lots of conversations about what we're doing and what the opportunities are. And I think I'm super excited about both what we've done, but continuing to execute along the lines that we've laid out for you all.

Betsy Lynn Graseck, Morgan Stanley, Research Division: Okay. And you'll announce the new head when the time is appropriate, right?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: We have already—we have Betsy, John will [indiscernible] press release.

Betsy Lynn Graseck, Morgan Stanley, Research Division: Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: I think we set it out [indiscernible] out internally, and there was an article this past week pointing it out.

Operator: The next question comes from Matt O'Connor of Deutsche Bank.

Matthew Derek O'Connor, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: Obviously, rate volatility is quite high here. So how do we think about the rate sensitivity to your net interest income if rates end up being a little bit higher, obviously, it seems like a structurally good, but help frame some of the sensitivity to the guidance that you put out there from changes in rates.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes, Matt. And obviously, we'll update the sensitivity in the Q or the K, I guess, when you get it. But we're still marginally asset sensitive, as I said in my script. But the balance sheet has sort of naturally gotten less sensitive over the last number of quarters. So rates coming down, as I said in the guidance, is a slight headwind to sort of our estimates. And if they hold a little bit higher than what was in the forward, then I think that will be a slight positive. So obviously, we're a little—we've become less rate-sensitive over the last number of quarters, but it's still a little bit asset-sensitive.

Matthew Derek O'Connor, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: Okay. That's helpful. And then just on trading, obviously, you guys have been executing really well for a few years now. And I don't want to make too much of just one quarter. But even if we strip out the fair value adjustment, the trading was still down year-over-year. Obviously, the peers are kind of implying up, I don't know, 15%, 20% plus just maybe talk a bit about was there anything unusual this quarter that [indiscernible] trading. And again, I appreciate last year was a strong quarter, but it did jump out.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. It was really about last year being a strong quarter than this year being a weak quarter. Nothing's changed. There's nothing abnormal underneath the surface. Nothing's changed in sort of our approach there. And obviously, the businesses are quite different when you look at peers. So I do think you have to look through the results a little bit given the global nature and maybe the risk that some of the others take.

Matthew Derek O'Connor, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division: Okay. Actually, just on that last point. Obviously, we know you're more domestic, but your comment that others might take more risk. Like how do you think you're being more conservative in trading?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Well, I just said you have to look at the risk they're taking. I'm not suggesting that I'm not going to—I'm not trying to say anybody is taking more risk or not. But—but when you look at our business, we've been very, very disciplined about sort of the risk appetite that we have across the trading businesses. And much of the focus has been in places that are balance sheet friendly, like FX, given the asset cap and other areas.

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: What we're saying is just that the size of our business is materially smaller than the biggest folks out there. The complexity of the products is very, very different, both because of the global nature, but also some of the things we do. So it's just that we just have a smaller, less complex business.

Operator: The next question comes from David Long of Raymond James.

David Joseph Long, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: As it relates to [indiscernible], just seems like a bit of a strategic shift after three years of seeing that portfolio decline. What are you seeing in that business that is increasing your appetite to grow it here forward?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. I wouldn't position it as a strategic shift. But a couple of years ago now, we took some tightening actions based on credit tightening act. There were 2 things going on. We took some credit tighten actioning tightening actions based on what we were seeing as what was happening in the market, and that had an impact on originations. We also saw some pretty significant spread compression at different points over the last couple of years. And so our focus is not to be big. Our focus is to have a good returning sort of profitable business there. And so we backed away in certain areas. I think over time, that starts to evolve and change and spread, we still—these spreads are a little bit better than they were a couple of years ago in some pockets. And so that's part of it. Second, Charlie highlighted it as well. We are continuing to invest in the auto business. We've been continuing to build out better capabilities to be a little bit more of a full-spectrum lender across different pockets. That's a very small piece of what you're seeing in there. And then obviously, the deal we signed with Volkswagen out hasn't had any impact at this point. That will start to have a small impact as we get later in the year. And so it's still relatively small growth in the originations. We're only talking a couple of billion year-on-year. And so we'll see as it progresses throughout the year.

David Joseph Long, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Got it. And then the second question I had relates to the investment securities portfolio repositioning. And do you have certain internal payback maximum that you're willing to look at? Or do you need to have a gain elsewhere in the bank before you look to take a loss in making some adjustments. What is the thought process that you go through to get you to the decision to actually act.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. Look, I think we've acted twice. We're in the third and the fourth quarter as we've sort of looked at different opportunities. We've been pretty disciplined about payback periods so far in total, it's roughly a 2, 2.5-year payback period across both of the repositionings we've done. Could we do something has a longer payback period maybe, but it's something we'll continue to evaluate based on what we're seeing in the market. But so far, we've been pretty disciplined about when we do it.

Operator: The next question comes from Vivek Juneja of JPMorgan.

Vivek Juneja, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Mike, a follow-up for you on your guide for NII of plus 1% to plus 3% for 2025 full year. Can you give us the guide for NII ex markets for 2025.

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: Yes. Vivek, that's not something we've historically provided. Again, given the size of our markets business and the contribution, and obviously, it's very sensitive to where short rates will end up going. There is an improvement embedded in the guide for trading related NII. That becomes—that is very sensitive to where the—where rates end up going. So it's not something we're going to disaggregate at this point.

Operator: The next question will come from Gerard Cassidy of RBC Capital Markets.

Gerard Sean Cassidy, RBC Capital Markets, Research Division: Charlie. Can you guys share with us, obviously, there are geopolitical risks all around. And I think many investors, obviously, are aware of those. Can you list for us the risks that you guys talk about outside of the geopolitical risk when you're running your business, what are the things—because the outlook, I think we all share the optimism you and your peers for the upcoming year for banking. And what are the risks, though, that could maybe sort of a curve ball at us?

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Well, the biggest risk that we have that we spend the most time talking about is cyber at this point, just away from the normal taking around credit, interest rate, operational risk, all the types of things you would talk about. And so—which is why we spend so much time on that and have the level of investment that we have and put the resources into it. Listen, as I said, I think in my remarks, we feel optimistic about where we are going into 2025, both because of where the economy is and the strength that has existed as well as the business-friendly approach from the incoming administration. What can—I mean, you know bad things can happen. It could be related to conflict, could be related to a surprise in the market. I mean those things are out there. We're prepared for them as we think about just the way we run the company, but there's no one risk that sticks out relative to just the things that you would do relative to how you run the business.

And the most important thing for us relative to just risk management and the performance of the company away from these big tail risks is the strength of the U.S. economy. The strength of the U.S. economy will drive the levels of success for our customers, both on the consumer and the wholesale side. And then we follow from their success. So anything that risks that is a risk for us.

Gerard Sean Cassidy, RBC Capital Markets, Research Division: Very good. No, very clear. As a follow-up, and I apologize if this is putting the cart before the horse. You guys have obviously made great progress in resolving your regulatory issues. You talked on the call today about the OCC lifting, obviously, the [indiscernible] order earlier last year. And so when we get beyond these issues for you folks, obviously, everybody talks about the asset cap and the Federal Reserves [indiscernible] order. Can we talk about strategic planning going forward in terms of how you might—because you have plenty of excess capital, how you might consider acquisitions? And in particular, what I'm interested in is pre-pandemic and pre-year asset cap Wells deposit market share was over 10%, which as we all know, you're no—no bank is permitted to buy a depository with the market share is over 10%. But now with the growth in the industry's deposits, you guys have been flat, you're below 10%. So would there—and again, I apologize if this is the cart before the horse, but is there any consideration once this is all behind you, as you guys look to grow through maybe acquisitions, depositories or investment banks? Or how are you guys looking at it from that standpoint?

Michael P. Santomassimo, Senior EVP & CFO: It's Mike. Look, we're 100% focused on all of the organic growth opportunities we have across each of the businesses. And that's—and the plan that we have been executing that started when he got here five years ago is the same plan we're going to be executing post asset cap. And I think it just involves basic execution across all the priorities, whether it's in card, wealth, IB, capital markets, et cetera, et cetera. And so that's our focus and—because we think there's a tremendous amount of opportunity to build off of the positions we have in each of these businesses across the country.

Operator: And the last question for today's call will come from Saul Martinez of HSBC.

Saul Martinez, HSBC, Research Division: You addressed—in response to an earlier question, changes in the incentive framework across the branches. And there is this debate about the extent and how quickly an asset cap removal would kick start and allow for balance sheet growth. But I'm curious to hear if you think there are still operational/cultural constraints that you need to address to really capitalize on the growth opportunities across your businesses in response to the sales scandal, you changed the compensation structure of the branches. As you mentioned, you've built in safeguards to prevent abuses and maybe there is more of a cultural predilection to be more risk-averse. But do you feel like these are factors you still need to address to sort of remove the shackles, create incentives that help you grow as you change more to a more of a growth mindset. If you could just maybe elaborate on those questions, please?

Charles W. Scharf, President, CEO & Director: Yes. Let me take a shot at it. So I think when we think about it is we are—and we've been this way since I got here, which is very deliberate about how we go about business expansion. And whether it's an area like the card business where we started five years ago or the CIB, whether it's in trading or banking or in the private credit space that we're offering something in the direct lending world for our commercial. We do—we're very focused on doing all of these in a very controlled way with the right risk framework and with all the right processes in place behind it.

And so I said in my remarks, we're not done yet in terms of all the things we have to deliver. But we are a very, very different company relative to the types of controls that exist today versus then. And so it's having those controls in place. It's just doing the testing and seeing that they're actually effective is what gives us the confidence to grow. And so when we talk about the opportunities that we have and the things that we're doing, it's because we have the confidence in those things that we put in place. So when you talk about the shackles off and where we go, we just—I mean, those aren't things that we talk about. Those aren't things that we think about. What we think about is that we are very disciplined in our approach in a very linear way towards where we are today versus where we want to go. And when we have the ability to grow the balance sheet from this point of view, we would expect to see the same. It's not—we're not going to sit here and say the shackles are off. So therefore, the following ten things are going to change materially. It's going to be disciplined, thoughtful piece by piece in a very controlled way and only in places that are supported by the controls that we have in place. Well, listen, everyone, thank you very much. We appreciate it, and we'll talk to you next quarter. Take care.

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