“In the first quarter, we also have our taxes at the highest, and we're paying our interest expense for the year at the highest. So that's easing. So I think what you'll see from us is 20 to 20 bps in the first quarter, and then sequentially improving. The second half looks much better than the first half.”

In context

“Please proceed with your question. Julian Mitchell: I want to say thank you, Sean, for all the help. If we think about the margin progression, just to try and understand that a little bit more for the total, so it's sort of flattish year on year in the first quarter, picks up steam over the balance of the year. Maybe help us understand how second-half weighted that margin acceleration is? And are there any specific items on a segment level driving that, please? Mike Stepniak: Sure, Julian. Thank you for the question. So on the headline numbers, we're expanding 20 to 60. Operationally, we really are expanding margins about 50 to 90 basis points. And we have a little bit of a headwind about 30 basis points this year from Continuum. That headwind is a little bit higher in the first quarter. In the first quarter, we also have our taxes at the highest, and we're paying our interest expense for the year at the highest. So that's easing. So I think what you'll see from us is 20 to 20 bps in the first quarter, and then sequentially improving. The second half looks much better than the first half. Vimal Kapur: Yeah. And, Julian, what I'll add is that the fundamental playbook, which Honeywell always executed on margin expansion, which is price, volume, productivity, that will be in full play this year. We do expect, as Mike mentioned, our operational margins to expand, you know, to 90 basis points and invest some money back in Continuum. But we are very well programmed to deliver margin expansion as we did in the past, like, 2023, we were 100 basis point margin expansion. So we are very confident in delivering our margin expansion rubric for 2026. Mike Stepniak: And I would just also maybe add that last year, we talked about it. We stepped up on engineering from an R&D standpoint. That's now normalized going into 2026. It's not a headwind for us. And last year, it was about, I think”