The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Michael Anthony Perito - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division - Analyst
: I wanted to stick on the expense theme for a second. I mean it sounds like based on your last comment there, Chris, that this is the case. But
obviously, there's been a lot of wage pressure out there and competition for talent and -- it seems like you guys actually kind of timed it really well,
right, when most of your hires haven't taken place already before this is kind of manifested. But I guess I just wanted to confirm that, that's the
case, and that's not really a threat to maybe knock you off your expense outlook for next year. It doesn't sound like it is, but just confirm that if
possible.
Question: Michael Anthony Perito - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division - Analyst
: Great. Helpful. And then just on the margin. So it sounds like you guys have a couple of chunks of higher cost funding that will run off the resi loan
purchase was later in the quarter. I mean now it seems -- I guess, putting all those pieces together, I mean, does it -- is the margin kind of continue
to -- the core margin rather is to kind of continue to inflect upward from here.
I mean, do you guys have any line of sight on kind of how you expect the liquidity position to act near term? And I guess, are there any other kind
of inputs that we should be mindful of as we kind of think of the core NIM trajectory? Because it seems like there's more tailwinds than headwinds
coming off the low figure that we're at in the last couple of quarters.
Question: Michael Anthony Perito - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division - Analyst
: And just lastly, and then I'll come back just on that point. Can you remind us how you think about -- I realize it's kind of a hard question in the
current environment, but how we should think about the normalized liquidity, cash and the bond book for you guys moving forward? I mean is
this level of securities probably fairly steady state? Or do you think it could move down? Or is it really just, when you say, kind of deploy liquidity,
you mean just getting this cash kind of back down to $100 million or plus or minus a more normalized level and not necessarily any kind of
compression on the securities portfolio?
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