Stacy Kymes
Analyst · Jon Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question
Yes. I mean, if you think, as we look forward and kind of anticipate over the next 90 to 180 days, we feel more confident about that than we did frankly, going into the year. Really, the tariff issue is the only kind of uncertainty issue. You’ve got tax reform. You’ve got it fully implemented. I think, people feel good about the regulatory environment that whatever industry they’re part of that there’s some stability there. I think, if you try to take the politics out of it, business people just want to know what the rules are. And then once they know what the rules are, they can work within those to maximize their business. And I think that after having a high level of uncertainty and people might know and when to invest and trying to miss an opportunity maybe related to tax reform, that’s done, it’s put to bed. And you’re seeing more business owner confidence in making investments, which we think pertains well. I mean, if you think about energy in particular as we look forward, our commitment growth annualized in energy is up 25%. Outstandings don’t reflect that at this point, although they’re very strong. And so if you look forward and think that utilization and energy kind of buying some more normal pattern over the latter-half of the year, that should speak very well to energy growth, as well as we move forward. So it’s kind of what we’re talking about when we look at commitment growth relative to outstandings or the macro environment. For general C&I, we see opportunity there and feel good about that. I mean, if you think about what we’ve talked about forever, which is loan growth is some modest multiple of GDP growth. Historically, we looked at it over 25, 30 years, somewhere between two and three times GDP growth is kind of where historical loan growth should be at if you’re doing it the right way not taking a necessary risk. So if you think about GDP growth growing, that’s helping in positive for loan growth. There’s a strong correlation historically between broader economic growth and C&I growth, in particular. So I think that the economic outlook continues to be positive for the country. Certainly, our geographic footprint, as Steve mentioned in his prepared remarks, is better than the national footprint. We think that, that really positions us well for growth going forward.