Federal Reserve press conference, 2023-05-03 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Jeanna Smialek, New York Times): Hi. Jeanna Smialek, New York Times. Thanks for taking our questions. I wonder if you could tell us whether we should read the statement today as a suggestion that the Committee is prepared to pause interest rate increases in June. And I also wonder if the Fed staff has in any way revised their forecast for a mild recession from the March minutes and, if so, what a recession like what they’re envisioning would look and feel like when it comes to, for example, the unemployment rate.
Answer: So, taking your question—of course, today our decision was to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points. A, a decision on a pause was not made today. You will have noticed that in the—in the statement from March, we had a sentence that said the Committee anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate. That sentence is, is not in, in the statement anymore. We took that out, and instead we’re saying that, in determining the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time, the Committee will take into account certain factors. So we—that’s a— that’s a meaningful change that we’re no longer saying that we anticipate. And so we’ll be driven by incoming data meeting by meeting. And, you know, we’ll approach that question at the June meeting. So the—the staff’s forecast is—so let me say—start by saying that that’s not my own most likely case, which is really that, that the economy will continue to grow at, at a modest rate this year. And I think that’s—so different people on the Committee have different forecasts. That’s, that’s my own assessment of the most likely path. [The] staff produces its own forecast, and it’s independent of the forecasts of, of the participants, which include the Governors and the Reserve Bank presidents, of course. And we think this is a healthy thing— that the, the staff is writing down what they really think. They’re not especially influenced by what the Governors think, and vice versa. The Governors are not taking what the staff says and just writing that down. So it’s actually good that the, the staff and individual participants can have different perspectives. So, broadly, the forecast was for a mild recession, and by that I would characterize as one in which the rise in unemployment is smaller than is—has been typical in modern-era recessions. I wouldn’t want to characterize the staff’s forecast for this meeting. We’ll, we’ll leave that to the minutes—but broadly, broadly similar to that.

Question (Rachel Siegel, Washington Post): Thank you, Chair Powell. Rachel Siegel from the Washington Post. Thanks for taking our questions. I’m wondering if you can talk about the account of possible effects of a debt-limit standoff. You’ve said repeatedly that the ceiling must be raised, but do you see any economics effects of even getting close to a default? And what type of situation would that look like?
Answer: So I wouldn’t want to speculate specifically, but I will say this: These are fiscal policy matters, for starters, and they’re, they’re for Congress and the Administration—for the elected parts of the government to deal with. And they’re really consigned to them. From our standpoint, I would just say this: It’s essential that the debt ceiling be raised in a timely way, so that the U.S. government can pay all of its bills when they’re due. A failure to do that would be unprecedented. We’d be in uncharted territory, and the—and the consequences to the U.S. economy would be highly uncertain and could, could be quite a[d]verse. So I’ll just leave it there. We, we don’t give advice to either side. We just would point out that it—that it’s very important that this be done. And the, the other point I’ll make about that, though, is that no one should assume that the Fed can protect the economy from the potential, you know, short- and long-term effects of a failure to pay our bills on time. We, we— it’s, it would be so uncertain that it’s just as important that, that this—we never get to a place where we’re actually talking about or even having a situation where the U.S. government’s not paying its bills.

Question (Rachel Siegel, Washington Post): And just a follow-up. Was discussion around the uncertainty of a possible standoff—did that affect today’s monetary policy decision at all?
Answer: I wouldn’t say that it did. It was—of course, it’s something that came up. We talk a lot about risks to the—to the outlook, and that will—that come up. A number of people did raise that as a risk to the outlook. I wouldn’t say that it was important in today’s monetary policy decision.

Question (Steve Liesman, CNBC): Mr. Chairman, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but the, the staff report said, “SVB . . . has significant interest rate risk.” It said, “Interest rate risk measurement[s] . . . failed” at SVB. And it said, “Banks with large unrealized losses face significant safety and soundness risks.” Why was that not alarming?
Answer: Well, I mean, I didn’t say it wasn’t alarming. It was—they’re pointing out something that they’re working on and that they’re on the case—that, that, you know, that—I’m not sure whether they mentioned—I think they did, actually. They mentioned that they had taken regulatory action matter—or supervisory action in the form of matters requiring attention. So I think that was also in the presentation. I think it was to say: Yes, this is a bank, and there are many other banks that are experiencing this—these things, and we’re on the case.

Question (Victoria Guida, Politico): Hi, Chair Powell. I wanted to ask—obviously, with the recent bank turmoil, we’ve seen multiple banks buy other banks. And I was just curious whether you think that further consolidation in the banking sector would increase or decrease financial stability and whether you have any concerns about the biggest bank in the U.S. getting even larger.
Answer: So I, you know, we certainly don’t—and I don’t have an agenda to further consolidate banks. There’s been—consolidation has been a factor in the U.S. banking industry really since interstate banking and before that even—it goes back more than 30 years. You—when I was in the government a while back, I think there were 14,000 banks. Now there are 4,000 and change. So that’s, that’s going on. I personally have long felt that having small-, medium-, and large-size banks is a, a great part of our banking system. You know, the community banks serve particular customers very well; regional banks serve very important purposes, and the various kinds of G-SIBs do as well. So I think it’s healthy to have a, you know, an arrange—a range of different kinds of banks doing different things. I think that’s a positive thing. Is it a financial—so I would just say, in terms of J.P. Morgan buying First Republic, the FDIC really runs the process of closing and selling a closed bank completely. That, that is their role, so I really don’t have a comment on, on that process. As you know, there’s an exception to the deposit cap for a failing bank. So it was legitimate. And I think the FDIC, I believe, is bound by law to take the bid that is the least-cost bid. So I would assume that’s what they did.

Question (Victoria Guida, Politico): So do you have any concerns about the fact that they’re, they’re getting larger in general?
Answer: So I, I think it’s probably good policy that we, we don’t want the largest banks doing big acquisitions. That is the policy. And—but this is—this is an exception for a failing bank. And I, I think it’s actually a good outcome for the banking system. It also would have—would have been a good—a good outcome for the banking system had one of the regional banks bought, bought this company. And that could have been the outcome. But, ultimately, we have to follow the law in our agencies, and the law is, it goes to the, the least-cost bid.

Question (Colby Smith, Financial Times): Thank you. Colby Smith with the Financial Times. At the March meeting, you mentioned that tightening of credit conditions from the recent bank stress could be equal to one or more rate increases. So, given developments since then, how has your estimate changed?
Answer: Yeah. I think—I think I follow that up by saying, it’s, it’s quite impossible to have a precise estimate of the words to that effect. But, in principle, that’s the idea. You know, when we—we’ve been raising interest rates, and that raises the price of credit, and that, in a sense, restricts credit in the economy, working through the price mechanism. And, you know, when banks raise their credit standards, that can also make credit tighter in a kind of broadly similar way. It isn’t—it isn’t possible to make a kind of clean translation between one and the other, although firms are trying that and, you know, we’re trying it. But, ultimately, we have to be—we have to be honest and humble about our ability to make a precise assessment. So it does complicate the task of achieving, you know, a sufficiently restrictive stance. But I think, conceptually, though, we think that, you know, interest rates—in principle, we won’t have to raise the rates quite as high as we would have had this not happened. The extent of that is so hard to predict because we don’t know how persistent these, these effects will be. We don’t know how large they’ll be and how long they’ll take to be transmitted. But that’s, that’s what we’ll be watching carefully to find out.

Question (Colby Smith, Financial Times): Just to quickly follow up—what does it suggest about the scope for the Committee to pause rate increases perhaps as early as next month, even if the data remains strong then, if, if it’s having some kind of substitute effect?
Answer: It’s that—this is just something that we have to factor in as we—as we want to find ourselves. So I guess I would say it this way: The assessment of, of the extent to which additional policy firming may be appropriate is going to be an ongoing one, meeting by meeting, and we’re going to be looking at the factors that I mentioned that—they’re listed in, in the statement, the obvious factors. That’s, that’s the way we’re going to be thinking about it. And that’s really all we can do. As I say, it does complicate—we, we have, you know, a broad understanding of monetary policy. Credit tightening is a different thing. There’s a lot of literature on that. But translating it into, into rate hikes is uncertain, let’s say—it adds even further uncertainty. Nonetheless, we’ll be able to see what’s happening with credit conditions— what’s happening with lending. We get—there’s a lot of data on that. And, you know, we’ll, we’ll factor that into our decisionmaking.

Question (Howard Schneider, Reuters): Howard Schneider with Reuters. Thank you. So, noting that the statement dropped the reference to “sufficiently” restricted—“restrictive,” I was wondering, given your baseline outlook, whether you feel this current rate of 5 to 5¼ percent is, in fact, sufficiently restrictive.
Answer: That’s going to be an ongoing assessment. We’re going to need data to accumulate on that—not an assessment that we’ve made, as—that, that would mean we think we’ve reached that point. And I just think it’s, it’s not possible to say that with confidence now. But, nonetheless, you, you will know that the Summary of Economic Projections from the March meeting showed that in—at that point in time, that the median participant thought that this was— this was the appropriate level of the—of the ultimate high level of rates. We don’t know that. We’ll revisit that at the June meeting. And that’s—you know, we’re just going to have to— before we really declare that, I think we’re going to have to see data accumulating and, and, you know, make that—as I mentioned, it’s an ongoing assessment.

Question (Howard Schneider, Reuters): I have a follow-up on credit. Could you give us a sense of what the SLOOS survey indicated? It was already, I think, 40, 45 percent of banks were tightening credit as of the, the last survey. What did this one show, and how did that weigh into your deliberations?
Answer: So we’re going to release the results of this SLOOS on May 8, in line with our usual time frame. And I would just say that the SLOOS is broadly consistent, when you see it, with how we and others have been thinking about the situation and what we’re seeing from other sources. You will have seen the Beige Book and listened to the various earnings calls that indicate that midsize banks have—some of them had been tightening their lending standards. Banking data will show that lending has continued to grow, but the pace has been slowing really since the second half of last year.

Question (Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal): And just to follow up, you know, what you said in response to Howard’s question—you’ll need data to accumulate to determine if this is a sufficiently restrictive stance. Does that data need to accumulate, or could it accumulate over a longer period than a six-week intermeeting cycle?
Answer: Yeah. I mean, as I mentioned, I would just say that this assessment will be an ongoing one. You—you know, you can’t—with, with economic data, you, you can’t—you’ve, you’ve seen—take inflation for a minute. Look, look back. We’ve seen inflation come down—move back up two or three times since March of 2021. We’ve seen inflation have a few months of coming down and then come right back up. So I think you’re going to want to see that—you know, that a few months of data will, will persuade you that you’ve—that you’ve got this right, kind of thing. And, you know, we, we have the luxury: We’ve raised 500 basis points. I think that policy is tight. I think real rates are probably—that you can calculate them many different ways. But one way is to look at the nominal rate and then subtract a, a reasonable estimate of, of, let’s say, one-year inflation, which might be 3 percent. So you’ve got 2 percent real rates. That’s meaningfully above what most people would—many people, anyway, would, would assess as, you know, the neutral rate. So policy is tight. And you see that in interest— interest-sensitive activities. And you also begin to see it more and more in, in other activities. And if you—if you put the—you put the credit tightening on top of that and the QT that’s, that’s ongoing, I think, I think you feel like, you know, we’re, we may not be far off—we’re possibly even at—that level.

Question (Edward Lawrence, Fox Business): You would be okay with a prolonged 3 percent?
Answer: You know, it’s—let me just say, that’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for inflation going down to 2 percent over time. I mean, we—that’s, that’s not a question that’s in front of us, and it would depend on so many other things. But, ultimately, we’re not looking to get to 3 percent and then drop our tools. We have a, a goal of getting to 2 percent. We think it’s going to take some time. We don’t think it’ll be a smooth process. And, you know, I think we’re going to—we’re going to need to stay at this for a while.

Question (Matthew Boesler, Bloomberg): Hi, Chair Powell. Matthew Boesler with Bloomberg News. So, many analysts noted at the time of the March FOMC meeting that at least half of Fed officials’ projections did imply or seemed to imply that a recession was in their baseline forecast as well, given the strong first-quarter GDP tracking estimates. And so I’m just wondering if you could kind of elaborate on, you know, why you’re optimistic that a recession can be avoided, given that that’s the Fed staff’s forecast—possibly also the broader Committee’s forecast as well—and, and also, of course, most private-sector forecasters’.
Answer: Yeah. I don’t think—you know, I know what’s printed in the Summary of Economic Projections and all that. I don’t think you can deduce exactly what you said about what participants think, because you don’t know what they were thinking for first- quarter GDP at that point. They could have been thinking about a fairly low number. Anyway, in any case, I’ll just say, I, I continue to think that it’s possible that this time is really different. And the reason is, there’s just so much excess demand, really, in the labor market. It’s, it’s interesting, as, you know, we’ve raised rates by 5 percentage points in 14 months, and the unemployment rate is 3½ percent, pretty much where it was—even lower than where it was when we started. So job openings are still very, very high. We see—by surveys and much, much [other] evidence—that, that conditions are cooling gradually. But it’s—it really is different. You know, it wasn’t supposed to be possible for job openings to decline by as much of the—as they’ve declined without unemployment going up. Well, that’s what we’ve seen. So we—there are no promises in this. But it just seems that, to me, that it’s possible that we can continue to have a cooling in the labor market without having the big increases in unemployment that have gone with many, you know, prior episodes. Now, that would be against history. I, I fully appreciate that. That would be against the, the pattern. But I do think that it—that this, that the situation in the labor market, with so much excess demand, yet, you know, wages are actually—wages have been moving down. Wage increases have been moving down, and that’s a good sign—down to a more sustainable level. So I think that—I think it’s still possible. I—you know, I think, you know, the, the case of, of avoiding a recession is, in my view, more likely than that of having, having a recession. But it’s not—it’s not that the case of having a recession is—I don’t rule that out, either. It’s, it’s possible that we will have what I hope would be a mild recession.

Question (Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press): Great. Chris Rugaber at Associated Press. Well, you mentioned profit margins. Those have expanded—did expand sharply during this inflationary period. And while there are some signs that they are starting to decline, many economists note they haven’t fallen as much as might be expected, given that we’re seeing at least some pullback among consumer spending. So, speaking of causes of inflation, do you see expanded profit margins as a driver of higher prices? And if so, would you expect them to narrow soon and, and contribute to reduced inflation in the coming months?
Answer: So higher profits and higher margins are what happens when you have an imbalance between supply and demand: too much demand, not enough supply. And we’ve been in a situation in many parts of the economy where, where supply has been fixed or, or not flexible enough. And so, you know, the way the market clears is through higher prices. So to get, I, I think—as goods pipelines have, have gotten, you know, back to normal so that we don’t have the long waits and the shortages and that kind of thing—I think you will see inflation come down. And you’ll see—you’ll see corporate margins coming down as a result of return of full competition, where there’s enough supply to meet demand. And then it’s—then it’s, then you’re really back to full competition. That’s—that would be the dynamic I would expect.

Question (Michael McKee, Bloomberg): Michael McKee for Bloomberg Radio and Television. Can you tell us something about what your policy reaction function is—your policy framework is going forward? When you look at the economy at the next meeting, are you looking at incoming data, which is, by definition, backward looking? Are you going to be forecasting what you think is going to happen? Are you ruling out the rate cuts that the market has priced in?
Answer: Oh, yes. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Okay, I got it. So, what are we looking at? I mean, we look at a combination of data and, and forecasts. Of course, the whole idea is to—is to create a good forecast based on what you see in the data. So we’re always, always looking at both. You know, and it will—of course, it’ll be the obvious things. It’ll be readings on inflation. It’ll be readings on wages, on economic growth, on the labor market, and all of those many things. I think a particular focus for us going—now, over the past six, seven weeks now and going forward is going to be, what’s happening with credit tightening? Are small and medium-sized banks tightening credit standards, and, and is that having an effect on, on loans, on lending? And, you know, so we can begin to assess how that fits in with monetary policy. That’ll, that’ll be an important thing. I just—you know, we’ll be looking at everything. It’s— again, I would just point out, we’ve raised rates by 5 percentage points. We are shrinking the balance sheet. And now we have credit conditions tightening—not just in the normal way, but perhaps a little bit more, due to what’s happened. And we have to factor all of that in and, and make our assessment of—you know, of whether our policy stance is sufficiently restrictive. And we have to do that in a world where policy works with long and variable lags. So this is challenging. But, you know, we, we will make our best assessment, and that’s what we think.

Question (Michael McKee, Bloomberg): What about the idea of rate cuts?
Answer: Yeah. So we on the Committee have a—have a view that inflation is going to come down—not so quickly, but it’ll take some time. And in that world, if that forecast is broadly right, it would not be appropriate and—to cut rates, and we won’t cut rates. If you have a different forecast and, you know, markets—or have been, from time to time, pricing in, you know, quite rapid reductions in inflation, you know, we’d, we’d factor that in. But that’s not our forecast. And, of course, the history of the last two years has been very much that inflation moves down. Particularly now, if you look at nonhousing services, it really, really hasn’t moved much. And it’s quite stable. And, you know, so we think we’ll have to—demand will have to weaken a little bit, and labor market conditions, conditions may have to soften a bit more to begin to see progress there. And, again, in that world, it wouldn’t be—it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to cut rates.

Question (Sarah Ewall-Wice, CBS News): Sarah Ewall-Wice, CBS News. I want to go back to the debt ceiling for a moment. I know you talked about that in terms of fiscal policy, but can you just speak towards what the impact of a default would mean for Americans across the country, the markets, and borrowing?
Answer: Yeah. I would just say, it’s —I, I don’t really think we should be— we shouldn’t even be talking about a world in which the U.S. doesn’t pay its bills. It just—it just shouldn’t be a thing. And, and again, I would just say, we don’t—no one should assume that the Fed can do—can really protect the economy and the financial system and our reputation globally from, from the damage that such, such an event might inflict.

Question (Scott Horsley, NPR): Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Scott Horsley for NPR. In his report last week, Vice Chair Barr identified a couple of the factors that he thought contributed to the regulatory—or the supervisory lapses at Silicon Valley Bank: a policy change in 2019 to exempt all but the biggest banks from strict scrutiny and also what he called a sort of cultural shift towards less aggressive oversight. You were here in 2019. Do you share that view, and what would it take to get the, the stronger oversight that you and he said in your release would be necessary?
Answer: So I, I didn’t—I didn’t take part in creating the report or doing the work, but I do—I have read it, of course. And I find it persuasive. I mean, I would say it this way: A, a very large—a large bank, not a very large bank—a large bank failed quite suddenly and unexpectedly in a way that threatened to spread contagion into the financial system. I think the only thing that, that I’m really focused on is to understand what went wrong, what happened, and, and identify what we need to do to address that. Some of that is—may, it may just have been technology evolving. You know, we have to keep up with all that. But some of it may be our policies, and—supervisory and regulatory, whatever. What our job is now is, identify those things and implement them. And that’s kind of the only thing I care about is—and I think—I feel like I am accountable for doing everything I can to make sure that that happens.

Question (Evan Ryser, MNI): Thank you. Evan Ryser with MNI Market News. Chair Powell, are we in the early stage or nearing the end stage of the banking turmoil among regional banks? And, secondly, do you still have a bias to tighten rates? Is that what the statement is saying?
Answer: So I guess I would—I guess I would say it this way. There were three large banks, really, from the very beginning that were at the heart of the stress that we— that we saw in early March, the severe period of stress. Those have now all been resolved, and all the depositors have been protected. I think that the resolution and sale of, of First Republic kind of draws a line under that period of—is an important step toward drawing a line under that period of, of severe stress. Okay. I also think we are very focused on what’s happening with credit availability, particularly, you know, with what you saw in the—in the Beige Book, and you will see in the SLOOS, is, is small and medium—medium-sized, small and medium-sized banks who are feeling that they need to tighten credit standards—build liquidity. What’s going to be the macroeconomic effect of that? More broadly, we, we will continue to very carefully monitor what’s going on in the banking system, and we’ll factor that assessment into our decisions in an important way, going forward.

Question (Greg Robb, MarketWatch): Thank you, Fed Chairman. Greg Robb from MarketWatch. I just wondered if you’ve done any reflection on, on your own actions during this crisis and leading up to it over the last—since you’ve been Fed Chairman, I think I’ve heard you say a couple of times that you deferred to the Vice Chair for Supervision. Do you think that was the right way to go about this? And, yeah, comments on that. Thank you.
Answer: Sure. So let me say, first of all, I’ve been Chair of the Board for five-plus years now, and I fully recognize that we made mistakes. I think we’ve learned some new things as well, and we need to do better. And, as I mentioned, I thought the report was unflinching and appropriately so. I welcome it. And I agree with and will support those recommendations. And I do feel that I’m personally accountable to do what I can to foster measures that will address the problems. So, on, on the Vice Chair for Supervision, you know, the place to start is, is the statutory role, which is quite unusual. The Vice Chair, it says, shall deploy policy recommendations—“develop policy recommendations for the Board regarding supervision and regulation of depository institution . . . companies . . . , and shall oversee the supervision and regulation of such firms.” So this is Congress establishing a four-year term for someone else on the Board—not, not the Chair—as Vice Chair for Supervision who really gets to set the agenda for supervision and regulation for the Board of Governors. Congress wanted that person to be—to have political accountability for developing that agenda. So the way it works—the way it has worked in practice for me is, I’ve had a good working relationship. I give my, my counsel, my input privately, and that’s—I offer that. And I have good conversations, and I try to contribute constructively. I respect the authority that Congress has deferred on that person, including working with, with Vice Chair Barr and, and his predecessor. And I think that’s the way it’s supposed to work, and that’s appropriate. I, I believe that’s what the law requires. And, you know—but, but it isn’t—I wouldn’t say it’s a matter of complete deference. It’s more, I have a—I have a role in, in presenting my views and discussing—having an intelligent discussion about what’s going on and why. And, you know, that’s, that’s my input. But, ultimately, that person does get to set the agenda and gets to take things to the Board of Governors and really, in supervision, has sole authority over supervision.

Question (Greg Robb, MarketWatch): Just wondered if you have any regrets? Or was there anything that, you know—decisions that maybe you regret now in light of what’s happened?
Answer: I’ve had a few, sure. I mean, you know, who doesn’t look back and think that you could have done things differently? But, honestly, you don’t—you don’t get to do that. Again, my focus is on what—control the controllable. As one of my great mentors used to always say, “Control the controllable.” What we control now is, make a fair assessment, learn the right lessons, figure out what the fixes are, and implement them. And, and I think that, that Vice Chair Barr’s report is an excellent first step in that, but we’ve got to follow through.

Question (Megan Cassella, Barron's): Hi, there. Megan Cassella with Barron’s. Did the possibility of pausing at this meeting come up at all, and how seriously was that considered? I’m curious if you can give us any color as to whether there were any initial concerns about raising rates again or what those discussions entailed.
Answer: So support for the 25 basis point rate increase was very strong across the board. I would say there are a number of people—and, you know, you’ll see this in the minutes. I don’t want to try to do the head count in real time. But people did talk about pausing, but not so much at this meeting, you know, that we’re—I mean, there’s a sense that we’re, we’re—that, you know, we’re much closer to the end of this than to the beginning, that—you know, as I mentioned, if you—if you add up all the tightening that’s going on through various channels, it’s—we, we feel like we—you know, we’re getting close or, or maybe even there. But that, again, that’s going to be an ongoing assessment. And, and we’re going to be looking at those factors that we listed and—to determine whether there’s, there’s more to do.

Question (Nancy Marshall-Genzer, Marketplace): Hi, Chair Powell. Nancy Marshall-Genzer with Marketplace. You mentioned a few times about the lessons you’ve learned from the banking crisis—that you would learn the right lessons. What are those lessons?
Answer: Well, I just would start with something that’s changed, really, which is this—the run on Silicon Valley Bank was out of keeping with the speed of runs through history. And that now needs to be reflected in some—in some way in regulation and in supervision. It—we know—now that we know it’s possible, I think we didn’t—no one thought that was possible. No one—I’m not aware of anybody thinking that this could happen so—quite so quickly. So I think that, you know, that will play through. I, I, you know—it will be up to Vice Chair Barr to really take the lead in designing the ways to address that. But I think—I think that’s one thing. I, I guess I would just say that. Then, you know—that we’re going to— obviously, we’re going to revisit [this]. It’s pretty clear we need—to me, anyways—clear that we need to strengthen both supervision and regulations for banks of this size. And I’m, I’m thinking that we’re on the—on track to do that as well.

Question (Nancy Marshall-Genzer, Marketplace): Can you be any more specific on stress testing or looking at banks that have specific concentrations in certain parts of the economy?
Answer: Yeah. That’s—see, that’s, that’s what Vice Chair Barr’s role really is, and he’ll take the lead on that. Thank you.