David Solomon

You know, there's an enormous opportunity given that population to continue to expand the economic activity on a localized basis here.

And they're looking for partners that can help drive that.

This part of the world has always allocated a significant portion of their surpluses to investing in privates.

If what you're asking is, will there be interesting investment opportunities on the ground here in these local economies?

Yes, absolutely.

As these economies grow, there will be more interesting investment opportunities here on the ground that attract international capital from around the world.

And we've obviously been seeing that in a more significant way over the course of the last five years.

Well, I appreciate that.

We certainly had a strong quarter and our client franchise is in terrific shape, but I really think that the firm is benefiting from a bunch of strategic decisions that we made five, six, seven years ago to reposition the firm for growth.

to really grow our core business of investment banking and markets, put more financial resources into the business so that we could take more wallet share with our clients and be in a position to better serve our clients as they were increasingly active.

And also to pull a group of businesses together to create our asset and wealth management platform, which now supervises $3.5 trillion.

We've said publicly we think it can grow in terms of its durable revenue, high single digits.

It's growing better than that.

And the combination of those activities has materially uplifted the returns of the firm.

So the environment is conducive at the moment.

There will be times when the environment is a little less conducive.

We live in a cyclical world.

But we think we have the firm position that over the next five, 10 years, we can continue to grow our earnings, grow our client footprint, and continue to compete at the highest levels in the businesses that we're in.

What I would say with respect to the Fed is the Fed will cut rates tomorrow, and then we'll see.

I know the consensus is you'll get another cut before the end of the year.