“So putting all the pieces together, the combination of strong top line growth and balanced expense management implies meaningful operating leverage within this scenario with further pretax margin expansion into the low 50s.”

In context

“io for 2026, we anticipate annual expense growth to range from 5.5% to 6.5%. Our spending plan aligns to our key strategic initiatives and aims to help us continue delivering financial growth through the cycle by driving new client growth and deepening relationships with individual investors and RIAs by further expanding our leading suite of offerings to serve their evolving needs, bolstering our best-in-class service experience while also harnessing incremental scale and efficiency. Select examples for 2026 include investing in branches, adding more financial consultants and wealth advisers, advertising and marketing, expanding our digital asset offering to include spot crypto trading and incorporating more AI across the firm, particularly within our service and technology organizations. So putting all the pieces together, the combination of strong top line growth and balanced expense management implies meaningful operating leverage within this scenario with further pretax margin expansion into the low 50s. If you follow the math down to the bottom line, this full year scenario implies potential adjusted earnings of around the $5.70 to $5.80 range, which would represent year-over-year earnings growth in the upper teens. As always, while rates, client activity and other variables may differ from what we have outlined within today's scenario, we are confident in our ability to drive strong financial outcomes across a range of environments. Similar to last year, we have provided a set of static revenue sensitivities based on year-end 2025 levels. These high-level sensitivities are intended to serve as a complement to the scenario we just walked through, helping you adjust estimates and shape your own perspective around 2026. While most of you are quite familiar with this page, given the focus o”