“So when we think about looking ahead, we still think the 95 to 100 even with the rate environment. And in a way, we're positioned fairly well regardless of what happens with the curve. We've been able to kind of put ourselves in a position where should the curve steepen or even stay flat, we still think that 95 to 100 is a good baseline. So if we had to kind of pick a point for the third quarter, it'd be more like the midpoint of the range at this point, just because of the seasonality of some of the real estate returns in 3Q.”

In context

“John McCallion (Chief Financial Officer and Head of MetLife Investment Management): Wes, this is John. Yes. As you call out, I mean, total spreads were 97 basis points, but that was a function of just a lower and weaker private equity returns that we referenced, but core spreads at 100 were at the top end, and we kind of created this new range of 95 to 100 previously. And we talked about asset deployment. We knew that was going to happen. We did see a little bit better improved real estate equity income in the quarter that is likely to probably seasonally reverse in the third quarter. So when we think about looking ahead, we still think the 95 to 100 even with the rate environment. And in a way, we're positioned fairly well regardless of what happens with the curve. We've been able to kind of put ourselves in a position where should the curve steepen or even stay flat, we still think that 95 to 100 is a good baseline. So if we had to kind of pick a point for the third quarter, it'd be more like the midpoint of the range at this point, just because of the seasonality of some of the real estate returns in 3Q.”