Thoughts on the Market

Although Monday’s correction springs from multiple causes, the real questions may be what’s next and when will the correction become a buying opportunity?----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the recent equity market correction and whether it’s time to step in.It's Monday, Aug 5th at 11:30am in New York.So let’s get after it.Over the past several weeks, global equity markets have taken on a completely different tone with most major averages definitively breaking strong uptrends from last fall. Many are blaming the Fed’s decision last week to hold interest rates steady in the face of weaker jobs data while others have highlighted the technical unwind of the Japanese yen carry trade.However, if we take a step back, this topping process began in April with the first meaningful sell off since last October’s lows. Even as many stocks and indices rallied back to new highs this summer, the leadership took on a more defensive posture with sectors like Utilities, Staples and even Real Estate doing better than they have in years. As I have been discussing on this podcast this shift in leadership has coincided with softer economic data during the second quarter. This softness has continued into the summer with the all-important labor market data joining in as already noted.This rotation was an early warning sign that stocks were likely vulnerable to a correction as we highlighted in early July. After all, the third quarter is when such corrections tend to happen seasonally for several reasons. This year has turned out to be no different. The real question now is what’s next and when will this correction become a buying opportunity?Lost in the blame game is the simple fact that valuations reached very rich levels this year, something we have consistently discussed in our research. In fact, this is the main reason we have no upside to our US major averages over the next year even assuming our economists’ soft landing base case outcome for the economy. In other words, stocks were priced for perfection.Now, with the deterioration in the growth data, and a Fed that is in no rush to cut rates proactively, markets have started to get nervous. Furthermore, the Fed tends to follow 2-year yields and over the last month 2-year treasury yields have fallen by 100 basis points and is almost 170 basis points below the Fed Funds rate. What this means is that the market is telling the Fed they are way too tight and they need to cut much more aggressively than what they have guided.The dilemma for the Fed is that the next meeting is six weeks away and that’s a lifetime when markets are trading like they are today. Markets tend to be impatient and so I expect they will continue to trade with high volatility until the Fed appeases the market’s wishes. The flip side, of course, is that the Fed does an intra meeting rate cut; but that may make the markets even more nervous about growth in my view.Bottom line, markets are likely to remain vulnerable in the near term until we get better growth data or more comfort from Fed on policy support, neither of which we think is forthcoming soon.Finally, support can also come from cheap valuations, but we don’t have that yet at current prices. As of this recording the S&P 500 is still trading 20x forward 12-month earnings estimates. Our fair value multiple assuming a soft-landing outcome on the economy is closer to 19x, which means things aren’t actually cheap until we reach 17-18x, which is more than 10 per cent away from where we are trading.In the meantime, we continue to recommend more defensive stocks in sectors like Utilities, Healthcare, Consumer Staples and some Real Estate. Conversely, we continue to dislike smaller cap cyclical stocks that are most vulnerable to the current growth slowdown and tight rate policy.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

After a dizzying week of economic and market activity, our Head of Corporate Credit Research breaks down the three top stories.----- Transcript -----It’s been a whirlwind week of economic activity in the markets as we enter the dog days of summer. Our Head of Corporate Credits Research breaks down three top stories.Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing what we’ve taken away from this eventful week.It's Friday, August 2nd at 2pm in London.For all its sophistication, financial activity is still seasonal. This is a business driven by people, and people like to take time off in the summer to rest and recharge. There’s a reason that volumes in August tend to be low.And so this week felt like that pre-vacation rush to pack, find your keys, and remember your ticket before running out the door. Important earnings releases, central bank meetings and employment numbers all hit with quick succession. Some thoughts on all that whirlwind.The first story was earnings and continued equity rotation. Equity markets are seeing big shifts between which stocks are doing well and poorly, particularly in larger technology names. These shifts are a big deal for equity investors, but we think they remain much less material for credit.Technology is a much smaller sector of the bond market than the stock market, as these tech companies have generally issued relatively little debt – relative to their size. Credit actually tends to overlap much more with the average stock, which at the moment continues to do well. And while the Technology sector has been volatile, stocks in the US financial sector – the largest segment for credit – have been seeing much better, steadier gains.Next up this week was the Bank of Japan, which raised policy rates, a notable shift from many other central banks, which are starting to lower them. For credit, the worry from such a move was somewhat roundabout: that higher rates in Japan would strengthen its currency, the yen. That such strength would be painful for foreign exchange investors, who had positioned themselves the other way around – for yen weakness. And that losses from these investors in foreign exchange could lead them to lower exposure in other areas, potentially credit. But so far, things look manageable. While the yen did strengthen this week, it hasn’t had the sort of knock-on impact to other markets that some had feared. We think that might be evidence that investor positioning in credit was not nearly as concentrated, or as large, as in certain foreign exchange strategies, and we think that remains the case.But the biggest story this week was the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, followed by the US Jobs number today. These two events need to be taken together.On Wednesday, the Fed chose to maintain its high current policy rate, while also hinting it’s open to a cut. But with inflation falling rapidly in recent months, and already at the Fed’s target on market-based measures, the question is whether the Fed should already be cutting rates to even out that policy. After all, lowering rates too late has often been a problem for the Fed in the past.Today’s weak jobs report brings these fears front-and-center, as highly restrictive monetary policy may start to look out-of-line with labor market weakness. And not cutting this week makes it more awkward for the Fed to now adjust. If they move at the next meeting, later in September; well, that means waiting more than a month and a half. But acting before that time, in an unusual intra-bank meeting cut; well, that could look reactive. The market will understandably worry that the Fed, once again, may be reacting too late. That is a bad outcome for the balance of economic risks and for credit.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Chief Global Cross-Asset Strategist, Serena Tang, explains where funds are moving across global markets currently, and why it matters to investors.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll dig into the concept of fund flows, how they shape global markets and why they matter to investors. It’s Thursday, August 1, at 10am in New York. Finance industry professionals often use the term “flows” when looking at where investors are, in the aggregate, moving their money. It refers to net movements of cash in and out of investment vehicles such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, or in and out of whole markets. By looking at flows, investors can get a good sense of where market winds are blowing and, essentially, where demand is at any given moment. Now, whether you’re a retail or institutional investor, having a perspective on market sentiment and demand are powerful tools. So today I’m going to give you a snapshot of some key flows, which should give a sense of demand and the mood right now; and what it means for investors.First of all, despite the recent rally in global equities year-to-date, we've yet to see an investor rotation, or portfolio realignment, from bonds to stocks. Flows into bonds are still leading flows into stocks by a pretty large margin. And unless stocks cheapen materially, we don’t expect this trend to reverse anytime soon. In addition, fund flows into large-cap equities still dwarf those into small-caps year-to-date. Although we saw a brief reversal of this trend in June, large caps flows have swung back to prominence. We do see hints of sector rotation within equities, as investors shift to what they see as more promising stocks; but it’s not a clean or entirely unambiguous story. The Science & Tech sectors – which saw a notable drop-off in flows from the first to the second quarter of this year – still lead year-to-date; and flows represent nearly a third into all flows into equities. More cyclical sectors like Basic Materials and Financials attracted more capital than in the first and second quarter, while defensive sectors such as Consumer Goods saw a softening of outflows compared to the same period. From a global perspective, we also look at flows in and out of particular regions or markets. So, year-to-date, US stocks received about US$43 billion in net inflows while rest-of-world stocks saw about US$15 billion in net outflows. Now, there were some exceptions – with India, Korea, and Taiwan leading – seeing significant inflows year-to-date. We look at flows within categories too, so within fixed income, for example, we are seeing flows toward less risky assets; revealing what we call a risk-off preference. Higher quality, Investment Grade funds – raked in about US$92 billion in net inflows year-to-date, while US treasuries saw only at US$25 billion. That Treasury number is actually significantly higher than what we saw from the first quarter to the second quarter, while inflows to High Yield and low-quality Investment Grade corporates have slowed compared to the start of the year. Finally, money market funds – that is mutual funds that invest in short-term higher quality securities – have not yet really seen sustained outflows, as one would expect when investors believe shorter term yields would come down, as central banks start to ease. Rather there’s been some $70 billion in net inflows through the first half of this year. Although we’re sympathetic to the view that money market outflows should begin when the Fed starts cutting rates, there’s actually a considerable lag between first cut and those outflows, as we have seen in the last two rate cutting cycles. But what does all of this mean for investors? Well, it suggests they still have a defensive tilt, and they shouldn’t really be jumping on the rotational story. The current yield environment means rotation from fixed income and money market funds into riskier assets is still some way away. Investors also shouldn’t look at the dry powder/cash on the sidelines narrative as the big tailwind for riskier assets -- because it’s not coming any time soon. That said, we still like non-government bonds because this is where cash would go first if and when those flows begin. We also like global equities, but more so because the benign macro backdrop we are forecasting supports this. We’ll keep you up to date if there’s any change in the direction of market winds and fund flows.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

As Generative AI continues to accelerate, some agencies will be better positioned than others to reap the benefits. Our Europe Media & Entertainment analyst, Laura Metayer, explains.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Laura Metayer, from the Morgan Stanley Europe Media & Entertainment team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss what the future may hold for advertising agencies amid fast-paced Generative AI developments.It’s Wednesday, July 31, at 2 PM in London. Right now we’re still in the early stages of GenAI’s impact on ad agency offerings; although the debate around technology removing the need for ad agencies is not new. Soon after the release of ChatGPT in early 2023, my colleagues in North America started mapping out the potential impact of GenAI on the ad agencies. They concluded that GenAI should represent an opportunity for the ad agencies, at least near-term. First, Gen AI would lead to productivity improvements from automatable tasks in creative, media, digital transformation consulting and central functions like HR and Finance. Second, GenAI would boost client demand for advice from agencies to help navigate the coming evolution in digital advertising.   Fast-forward to now and the impact of GenAI on the ad agencies has become an active investor debate, with concerns centering around the Creative business. Many eyes are on the Gen AI-powered text to image/video tools, which could disrupt the ad agencies' Creative & Production business. We this has weighed on agency stock prices recently.  Essentially, the bear case has been – and is – that technology would devalue agencies’ offerings and agency clients may rely more on tech platforms and in-house services. That bear case – twenty years into online advertising – has not played out. We think that in these early days of AI’s impact on marketing, there may be more upside to agency equities than risk over the next 12 to 18 months.  On the one hand, the introduction of Gen AI tools may mean reduced pricing power and challenged top-line growth. At the same time, replacing creative personnel with software may increase earnings power, even with less revenue. We think it's likely that a key value-add of the ad agencies' Creative business would be campaign personalization at scale, powered by data and technology. Looking back, technology has been commoditizing certain areas of creative and production for years, well ahead of AI; and yet creativity and creative services remain core value propositions by agencies to brands. Overall, there is as much – if not more – opportunity than risk for ad agencies over time. So let me leave you with two key takeaways:  First, we see the larger ad agencies as better positioned to remain relevant to customers in the GenAI era. However, we would caution that their large scale may also lower their ability to adapt quickly to evolving customer requirements when it comes to GenAI. Second, we expect GenAI to drive more consolidation in the industry. We think it’s likely that some of the large ad agencies take market share from other large ad agencies. As these trends play out over time, we’ll continue to keep you updated. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

A later cycle economy and continued uncertainty means that investors should be remain wary of cyclicals such as small caps, explains Mike Wilson, our CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about slowing growth in the context of high valuations.It's Tuesday, July 30th at 3pm in New York.So, let’s get after it.Over the past few weeks, the equity markets have taken on a different complexion with the mega cap stocks lagging and lower quality small caps doing better. What does this mean for investor portfolios? And is the market telling us something about future fundamentals? In our view, we think most of this rotation is due to the de-grossing that is occurring within portfolios that are overweight large cap quality growth and underweight lower quality and smaller cap names.We have long been in the camp that large cap quality has been the place to be – for equity investors – as opposed to diving down the quality and cap curves. That continues to be the case; though we are watching the fundamental and technical backdrop for small caps closely, and we’re respectful of the pace of the recent move in the space.For now, however, we continue to think the better risk/reward is to stay up the quality curve and avoid the more cyclical parts in the market like small caps. Our rationale for such positioning is simple — in a later cycle economy where growth is softening or not translating into earnings growth for most companies, large cap quality outperforms. Exacerbating the many imbalances across the economy is a bloated fiscal budget deficit. In our view, there are diminishing returns to fiscal spending when it starts to crowd out private companies and consumers. As I have been discussing for the past year, this crowding out has contributed to the bifurcation of performance in both the economy and equity markets, while potentially keeping the Fed's Interest rate policy tighter than it would have been otherwise.While the macro data has been mixed, there is a growing debate around the actual strength of the labor market with the household survey painting a weaker picture than the non-farm payroll data which is based on employer surveys. The bottom line is that we are in a stable, but decelerating late cycle economy from a macro data standpoint. However, on the micro front, the data has not been as stable and is showing a more meaningful deterioration in growth; particularly as it relates to the consumer.More specifically, earnings revision breadth has broken down recently for many of the cyclical parts of the market. Financials has been a bright spot here but that may be short-lived if the consumer continues to weaken. We continue to favor quality but with a greater focus on defensive sectors like utilities, staples and REITs as opposed to growthier ones like technology. The issue with the growth stocks is valuations and the quality of the earnings for some of the mega cap tech stocks.The other variable weighing on stocks at the moment is valuations which remain in the top decile of the past 20 years. It’s worth noting that valuations are very sensitive to earnings revisions breadth. The last time revision breadth rolled over into negative territory was last fall. Between July and October 2023, the market multiple declined from 20x to 17x. Two weeks ago, this multiple was 22x and is now 21x. If earnings revisions continue to fade as we expect, it’s likely these valuations have further to fall. With our 12-month base case target multiple at 19x, the risk reward for equities broadly remains quite unfavorable at the moment.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, leave us a review wherever you listen, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our sustainability strategists Stephen Byrd and Tim Chan discuss what’s driving new opportunities across the global nuclear power sector and some risks investors should keep in mind.----- Transcript -----Stephen Byrd: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Steven Byrd, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Sustainability Research.Tim Chan: And I'm Tim Chan, Asia Pacific Head of Sustainability Research.Stephen Byrd: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll discuss some significant developments in the nuclear power generation space with long term implications for global markets.It’s Monday, July 29th at 8am in New York.Tim Chan: And 8 pm in Hong Kong.Stephen Byrd: Nuclear power remains divisive, but it is making a comeback.So, Tim, let's set the scene here. What's really driving this resurgence of interest in nuclear power generation?Tim Chan: One key moment was the COP28 conference last year. Over 20 countries, including the US, Canada, and France, signed a joint declaration to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. Right now, the world has about 390 gigawatts of nuclear capacity providing 10 per cent of global electricity. It took 70 years to bring global nuclear capacity to 390 gigawatts. And now the COP28 target promises to build another 740 gigawatts in less than 30 years.And if this remarkable nuclear journey is going to be achieved, that will require financing and also shorter construction time.Stephen Byrd: So, Tim, how do you size the market opportunity on a global scale over the next five to ten years?Tim Chan: We estimate that nuclear renaissance will be worth $ 1.5 trillion (USD) through 2050, in the form of capital investment in new global nuclear capacity. And the growth globally will be led by China and the US. China will also lead in the investment in nuclear, followed by the US and the EU. In addition, this new capacity will need $128 billion (USD) annually to maintain.Stephen Byrd: Well, Tim, those are some gigantic numbers, $1.5 trillion (USD) and essentially a doubling of nuclear capacity by 2050. I want to dig into China a bit and if you could just speak to how big of a role China is going to play in this.Tim Chan: In China, by 2060, nuclear is likely to account for roughly 80 per cent of the total power generation, according to the China Nuclear Association. This figure represents half of the global nuclear capacity in similar stages, which amounts to 520 gigawatts.And Stephen, can you tell us more about the US?Stephen Byrd: Sure, during COP 28, the US joined a multinational declaration to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050. In this past year, the US has seen the completion of a new nuclear power plant in Georgia, which is the first new reactor built in the United States in over 30 years.Now, beyond this, we have not seen a strong pipeline in the US on large scale nuclear plants, according to the World Nuclear Association. And for the US to triple its nuclear capacity from about 100 gigawatts currently, the nation would need to build about 200 gigawatts more capacity to meet the target.In our nuclear renaissance scenario, we assume only 50 gigawatts will be built, considering a couple of factors. So, first, clean energy options, such as wind and solar are becoming more viable; they're dropping in cost. And also, for new nuclear in the United States, we've seen significant construction delays and cost overruns for the large-scale nuclear plants. Now that said, there is still upside if we're able to meet the target in the US.And I think that's going to depend heavily on the development of small modular reactors or SMRs. I am optimistic about SMRs in the longer term. They're modular, as the name says. They're easier to design, easier to construct, and easier to install. So, I do think we could see some upside surprises later this decade and into the next decade.Tim Chan: And nuclear offers a unique opportunity to power Generative AI, which is accounting for a growing share of energy needs.Stephen Byrd: So, Tim, I was wondering how long it was going to take before we began to talk about AI.Nuclear power generators do have a unique opportunity to provide power to data centers that are located on site, and those plants can provide consistent, uninterrupted power, potentially without external connections to the grid. In the US, we believe supercomputers, which are essentially extremely large data centers used primarily for GenAI training, will be built behind the fence at one or more nuclear power plants in the US. Now these supercomputers are absolutely massive. They could use the power, potentially, of multiple nuclear power plants.Now just let that sink in. These supercomputers could cost tens of billions of dollars, possibly even $100 billion plus. And they will bring to bear unprecedented compute power in developing future Large Language Models.So, Tim, where does regulation factor into the resurgence of nuclear power or the lack of resur

Our head of Corporate Credit Research, Andrew Sheets, notes areas of uncertainty in the credit, equity and macro landscapes that are worth tracking as we move into the fall.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about three risks we’re focused on for the third quarter.It's Friday, July 26th at 2pm in London.We like credit. But there are certainly risks we’re watching. I’d like to discuss three that are top of mind. The first is probably the mildest. Looking back over the last 35 years, August and September have historically been tougher months for riskier assets like stocks and corporate bonds. US High Yield bonds, for example, lose about 1 per cent relative to safer government bonds over August-September. That’s hardly a cataclysm, but it still represents the worst two-month stretch of any point of the year. And so all-else-equal, treading a little more cautiously in credit over the next two months has, from a seasonal perspective, made sense. The second risk is probably the most topical. Equity markets, especially US equity markets, are seeing major shifts in which stocks are doing well. Since July 8th, the Nasdaq 100, an index dominated by larger high-quality, often Technology companies, is down over 7 per cent. The Russell 2000, a different index representing smaller, often lower quality companies, is up over 11 per cent. So ask somebody – ‘How is the market?’ – and their answer is probably going to differ based on which market they’re currently in. This so-called rotation in what’s outperforming in the equity market is a risk, as Technology and large-cap equities have outperformed for more than a decade, meaning that they tend to be more widely held. But for credit, we think this risk is pretty modest. The weakness in these Large, Technology companies is having such a large impact because they make up so much of the market – roughly 40 per cent of the S&P 500 index. But those same sectors are only 6 per cent of the Investment grade credit market, which is weighted differently by the amount of debt somebody is issued. Meanwhile, Banks have been one of the best performing sectors of the stock market. And would you believe it? They are one of the largest sectors of credit, representing over 20 per cent of the US Investment Grade index. Put a slightly different way, when thinking about the Credit market, the average stock is going to map much more closely to what’s in our indices than, say, a market-weighted index. The third risk on our minds is the most serious: that economic data ends up being much weaker than we at Morgan Stanley expect. Yes, weaker data could lead the Fed and the ECB to make more interest rate cuts. But history suggests this is usually a bad bargain. When the Fed needs to cut a lot as growth weakens, it is often acting too late. And Credit consistently underperforms.We do worry that the Fed is a bit too confident that it will be able to see softness coming, given the lag that exists between when it cuts rates and the impact on the economy. We also think interest rates are probably higher than they need to be, given that inflation is rapidly falling toward the Fed’s target. But for now, the US Economy is holding up, growing at an impressive 2.8 per cent rate in the second quarter in data announced this week. Good data is good news for credit, in our view. Weaker data would make us worried. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Markets are contending with greater uncertainty around the US presidential election following President Biden’s withdrawal. Our Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research breaks down what we know as the campaign enters a new phase.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the latest development in the US presidential race.It's Thursday, July 25th at 2:30 pm in New York. Last weekend, when President Biden decided not to seek re-election, it begged some questions from investors. First, with a new candidate at the top of the ticket, are there new policy impacts, and potential market effects, resulting from Democrats winning that we haven’t previously considered? For the moment, we think the answer is no. Consider Vice President Harris. Her policy positions are similar to Biden’s on key issues of importance to markets. And even if they weren’t, the details of key legislative policies in a Democratic win scenario will likely be shaped by the party’s elected officials overall. So, our guidance for market impacts that investors should watch for in the event that Democrats win the White House is unchanged. Second, what does it mean for the state of the race? After all, markets in the past couple of weeks began anticipating a stronger possibility of Republican victory. It was visible in stronger performance in small cap stocks, which our equity strategy team credited to investors seeing greater benefits in that sector from more aggressive tax cuts under possible Republican governance. It was also visible in steeper yield curves, which could reflect both weaker growth prospects due to tariff risks, pushing shorter maturity yields lower, and greater long-term uncertainty on economic growth, inflation, and bond supply from higher US deficits – something that could push longer-maturity Treasury yields relatively higher. So, it's understandable that investors could question the durability of these market moves if the race appeared more competitive. But the honest answer here is that it's too early to know how the race has changed. As imperfect as they are, polls are still our best tool to gauge public sentiment. And there’s scant polling on Democratic candidates not named Biden. So, on the question of which candidate more likely enjoys sufficient voter support to win the election, it could be days or weeks before we have reliable information. That said, prediction markets are communicating that they expect the race to tighten – pricing President Trump’s probability of regaining the White House at about 60-65 per cent, down from a recent high of 75-80 per cent. So bottom line, a change in the Democratic ticket hasn’t changed the very real policy stakes in this election. We’ll keep you informed here of how it's impacting our outlook for markets. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Chief Asia Economist explains how the region’s economies and markets would be affected by higher tariffs, and other possible scenarios in the US elections.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Asia Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss a question that’s drawing increasing attention – just how the U.S. presidential election would affect Asian economies and markets. It’s Wednesday, July 24th, at 8 PM in Hong Kong. As the US presidential race progresses, global markets are beginning to evaluate the possibility of a Trump win and maybe even a Republican sweep. Investors are wondering what this would   mean for Asia in particular. We believe there are three channels through which the US election outcome will matter for Asia. First, financial conditions – how the US dollar and rates will move ahead of and after the US elections. Second, tariffs. And third, US growth outcomes, which will affect global growth and end demand for Asian exports. Well, out of the three our top concern is the growth downside from higher tariffs. The 2018 experience suggests that the direct effect of tariffs is not what plays the most dominant role in affecting the macro outcomes; but rather the transmission through corporate confidence, capital expenditure, global demand and financial conditions. Let’s consider two scenarios. First, in a potential Trump win with divided government, China would likely be more affected from tariffs than Asia ex China. We see potentially two outcomes in this scenario – one where the US imposes tariffs only on China, and another where it also imposes 10 percent tariffs on the rest of the world. In the case of 60 percent tariffs on imports from China, there would be meaningful adverse effect on Asia's growth and it will be deflationary. China would remain most exposed compared to the rest of the region, which has reduced its export exposure to China over time and could see a positive offset from diversification of the supply chain away from China. In the case where the US also imposes 10 percent tariffs on imports from the rest of the world, we expect a bigger downside for China and the region. We believe that in this instance – in addition to the direct effect of tariffs on exports – the growth downside will be amplified by significant negative impact on corporate confidence, capex and trade. Corporate confidence will see bigger damage in this instance as compared to the one where tariffs are imposed only on China as corporate sector will have to think about on-shoring rather than continuing with friend-shoring. In the second scenario, in a potential Trump win with Republican sweep, in addition to the implications from tariffs, we would also be watching the possible fiscal policy outcomes and how they would shift the US yields and the dollar. This means that the tightening of financial conditions would pose further growth downside to Asia, over and above the effects of tariffs. How would Asia’s policymakers respond to these scenarios? As tariffs are imposed, we would expect Asian currencies to most likely come under depreciation pressure in the near term. While this helps to partly offset the negative implications of tariffs, it will constraint the ability of the central banks to cut rates. In this context, we expect fiscal easing to lead the first part of the policy response before rate cuts follow once currencies stabilize. It’s worth noting that in this cycle, the monetary policy space in Asia is much more limited than in the previous cycles because nominal rates in Asia for the most part are lower than in the US at the starting point. Of course, this is an evolving situation in the remaining months before the US elections, and we’ll continue to keep you updated on any significant developments. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Head of Global Autos & Shared Mobility discusses what makes humanoid robots a pivotal trend with implications for the global economy.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s Head of Global Autos & Shared Mobility. Today I’ll be talking about an unusual but hotly debated topic: humanoid robots.It’s Tuesday, July 23rd, at 10am in New York. We've seen robots on factory floors, in displays at airports and at trade shows – doing work, performing tasks, even smiling. But over the last eighteen months, we seem to have hit a major inflection point.What's changed? Large Language Models and Generative AI. The current AI movement is drawing comparisons to the dawn of the Internet. It’s begging big, existential questions about the future of the human species and consciousness itself. But let’s look at this in more practical terms and consider why robots are taking on a human shape. The simplest answer is that we live in a world built for humans. And we’re getting to the point where – thanks to GenAI – robots are learning through observation. Not just through rudimentary instruction and rules based heuristic models. GenAI means robots can observe humans in action doing boring, dangerous and repetitive tasks in warehouses, in restaurants or in factories. And in order for these robots to learn and function most effectively, their design needs to be anthropomorphic. Another reason we're bullish on humanoid robots is because developers can have these robots experiment and learn from both simulation and physically in areas where they’re not a serious threat to other humans. You see, many of the enabling technologies driving humanoid robots have come from developments in autonomous cars. The problem with autonomous cars is that you can't train them on public roads without directly involving innocent civilians – pedestrians, children and cyclists -- into that experiment. Add to all of this the issue of critical labor shortages and challenging demographic trends. The global labor total addressable market is around $30 trillion (USD) or about one-third of global GDP. We’ve built a proprietary US total addressable market model examining labor dynamics and humanoid optionality across 831 job classifications, working with our economic team; and built a comprehensive survey across 40 sectors to understand labor intensity and humanoid ability of the workforce over time. In the United States, we forecast 40,000 humanoid units by 2030, 8 million by 2040 and 63 million by 2050 – equivalent to around $3 trillion (USD) of salary equivalent. But as early as 2028 we think you're going to see significant adoption beginning in industries like manufacturing, production, warehousing, and logistics, installation, healthcare and food prep. Then in the 2030s, you’re going to start adding more in healthcare, recreational and transportation. And then after 2040, you may see the adoption of humanoid robots go vertical. Now you might say – that’s 15 years from now. But just like autonomous cars, the end state might be 20 years away, but the capital formation is happening right now. And investors should pay close attention because we think the technological advances will only accelerate from here. Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist explains that in the event of a Republican sweep in this fall’s U.S. elections, investors should not expect a repeat of 2016 given the different business environment.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity  Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about  why investors should fade the recent rally in small caps and other pro cyclical trades. It's Monday, July 22nd at 11:30am in New York.  So let’s get after it.With Donald Trump’s odds of winning a second Presidency rising substantially over the past few weeks, we’ve fielded many questions on how to position for this outcome. In general, there is an increasing view that growth and interest rates could be higher given Trump's focus on business-friendly policies, de-regulation, higher tariffs, less immigration and additional tax cuts.  While the S&P 500 has risen alongside Trump's presidential odds this year, several of the perceived  industry outperformers under this political scenario have only just recently started to show relative outperformance. One could argue a Trump win in conjunction with a Republican sweep could be  particularly beneficial for Banks, Small Caps, Energy Infrastructure and perhaps Industrials. Although, the  Democrats' heavy fiscal spending and subsidies for the Inflation Reduction Act, Chips Act and other infrastructure projects suggest Industrial stocks may not see as much of an incremental benefit relative to the past four years. The  perceived industry underperformers are alternative energy stocks and companies likely to be affected  the most by increased tariffs. Consumer stocks stand out in terms of this latter point, and they have underperformed recently. However, macro factors are likely affecting this dynamic as well. For example, concerns around slowing services demand and an increasingly value-focused consumer have risen, too. It's interesting to note that while these cyclical areas that are perceived to outperform under a Trump Presidency did work in 2016 and through part of 2017, they did even better during Biden's first year. Our rationale on this front is that the cycle plays a larger role in how stocks trade broadly and at the sector level than who is in the White House. As a comparison, we laid out a bullish case at the end of 2016 and in early 2017 when many were less constructive on pro cyclical risk assets than we were post the 2016 election. It’s worth pointing out that the global economy was coming out of a commodity and  manufacturing recession at that time, and growth was just starting to reaccelerate, led by another China boom. Today, we face a much different macro landscape. More specifically, several of the cyclical trades mentioned above typically show their best performance in the early cycle phase of an economic  expansion like 2020-2021. They show strong, but often not quite as strong performance in mid cycle  periods like 2016-17. They tend to show less strong returns later in the cycle like today. Our late cycle view is further supported by the persistent fall in long term interest rates and inverted yield curve.  We believe the recent outperformance of lower quality, small cap stocks has been driven mainly by a combination of softer inflation data and hopes for an earlier Fed cut combined with dealer demand and short covering from investors on the back of Trump’s improved odds. For those looking to the 2016 playbook, we would point out that relative earnings revisions for small cap cyclicals are much weaker today than they were during that period.   Back in December when small caps saw a similar squeeze higher, we explored the combination of factors  that would likely need to be in place for small cap equities to see a durable, multi-month period of  outperformance. Our view was that the introduction of rate cuts in and of itself was not enough of a factor to drive small cap outperformance versus large caps. In fact, history suggests large cap growth tends to be the best performing style once the Fed begins cutting as nominal growth is often slowing at  this point in the cycle, which enables the Fed to begin cutting. We concluded that to see durable small cap  outperformance, we would need to see a much more aggressive Fed cutting cycle that revived animal spirits in a significant enough way for growth and pricing power to inflect higher, not lower like recent trends.  We are monitoring small cap earnings expectations and small business sentiment for signs that animal  spirits are building in this way. Rates and pricing power are still headwinds; while small businesses are not all that sanguine about expanding operations, they are increasingly viewing the economy

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research shares four reasons that he believes credit spreads are likely to stay near their current lows.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about why being negative credit isn’t as obvious as it looks, despite historically low spreads.It's Friday, July 19th at 2pm in London.We’re constructive on credit. We think the asset class likes moderation, and that’s exactly what Morgan Stanley forecasts expect: moderate growth, moderating inflation and moderating policy rates. Corporate activity is also modest; and even though it’s picking up, we haven’t yet seen the really aggressive types of corporate behavior that tend to make bondholders unhappy. Meanwhile, demand for the asset class is strong, and we think the start of Fed rate cuts in September could make it even stronger as money comes out of money market funds, looking to lock in current interest rates for longer in all sorts of bonds – including corporate bonds. And so while spreads are low by historical standards, our call is that helpful fundamentals and demand will keep them low, at least for the time being. But the question of credit’s valuation is important. Indeed, one of the most compelling bearish arguments in credit is pretty straightforward: current spreads are near some of their lowest levels of several prior cycles. They’ve repeatedly struggled to go lower. And if they can’t go lower, positioning for spreads to go wider and for the market to go weaker, well, it would seem like pretty good risk/reward. This is an extremely fair question! But there are four reasons why we think the case to be negative isn’t as straightforward as this logic might otherwise imply.First, a historical quirk of credit valuations is that spreads rarely trade at long-run average. They are often either much wider, in times of stress, or much tighter, in periods of calm. In statistical terms, spreads are bi-modal – and in the mid 1990s or mid 2000’s, they were able to stay near historically tight levels for a pretty extended period of time. Second, work by my colleague Vishwas Patkar and our US Credit Strategy team notes that, if you make some important adjustments to current credit spreads, for things like quality, bond price, and duration, current spreads don’t look quite as rich relative to prior lows. Current investment grade spreads in the US, for example, may still be 20 basis points wider than levels of January 2020, right before the start of COVID. Third, a number of the key buyers of corporate bonds at the moment are being driven by the level of yields, which are still high rather than spread, which are admittedly low. That could mean that demand holds up better even in the face of lower spreads. And fourth, credit is what we’d call a positive carry asset class: sellers lose money if nothing in the market changes. That’s not the case for US Treasuries, or US Equities, where those who are negative – or short – will profit if the market simply moves sideways. It’s one more factor that means that, while spreads are low, we’re mindful that being negative too early can still be costly. It’s not as simple as it looks. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our experts discuss how high prices for auto insurance have been driving inflation, and the implications for consumers and the Fed now that price increases are due to slow.----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist.Diego Anzoategui: I'm Diego Anzoategui from the US Economics team.Bob Huang: And I'm Bob Huang, the US Life and Property Casualty Insurance Analyst.Seth Carpenter: And on this episode, we're going to talk about a topic that -- I would have guessed -- historically we weren't going to think about too often in a macro setting; but over the past couple of years it's been a critical part of the whole story on inflation, and probably affects most of our listeners.It's auto insurance and why we think we're reaching a turning point.It's Thursday, July 18th at 10am in New York.All right, let's get started.If you drive a car in the United States, you almost surely have been hit by a big increase in your auto insurance prices. Over the past couple of years, everyone has been talking about inflation, how much consumer prices have been going up. But one of the components that lots of people see that's really gone up dramatically recently has been auto insurance.So that's why I wanted to come in and sit down with my colleagues, Diego and Bob, and talk through just what's going on here with auto insurance and how does it matter.Diego, I'm going to start with you.One thing that is remarkable is that the inflation that we're seeing now and that we've seen over the past several months is not related to the current state of the economy.But we know in markets that everyone's looking at the Fed, and the Fed is looking at the CPI data that's coming out. We just got the June CPI data for the US recently. How does this phenomenon of auto insurance fit into that reading on the data?Diego Anzoategui: Auto insurance is a relatively small component of CPI. It only represents just below 3 per cent of the CPI basket. But it has become a key driver because of the very high inflation rates has been showing. You know, the key aggregate the Fed watches carefully is core services ex-housing inflation. And the general perception is that inflation in these services is a lagged reflection of labor market tightness. But the main component driving this aggregate, at least in CPI, since 2022 has been auto insurance.So the main story behind core services ex-housing inflation in CPI is just the lagged effect of a cost shock to insurance companies.Seth Carpenter: Wait, let me stop you there. Did I understand you right? That if we're thinking about core services inflation, if you exclude housing; that is, I think, what a lot of people think is inflation that comes from a tight labor market, inflation that comes from an overheated economy. And you're saying that a lot of the movement in the past year or two is really coming from this auto insurance phenomenon.Diego Anzoategui: Yes, that's exactly true. It is the main component explaining core services ex-housing inflation.Seth: What's caused this big acceleration in auto insurance over the past few years? And just how big a deal is it for an economist like us?Diego Anzoategui: Yeah, so believe it or not, today's auto insurance inflation is related to COVID and the supply chain issues we faced in 2021 and 2022. Key cost components such as used cars, parts and equipment, and repair cost increased significantly, creating cost pressures to insurance companies. But the reaction in terms of pricing was sluggish. Some companies reacted slowly; but perhaps more importantly, regulators in key states didn't approve price increases quickly.Remember that this is a regulated industry, and insurance companies need approvals from regulators to update premiums. And, of course, losses increased as a result of this sluggish response in pricing, and several insurance started to scale back businesses, creating supply demand imbalances.And it is when these imbalances became evident that regulators started to approve large rate increases, boosting car insurance inflation rapidly from the second half of 2022 until today.Seth Carpenter: Okay, so if that's the case, what should we think about as key predictors, then, of auto insurance prices going forward? What should investors be aware of? What should consumers be aware of? Diego Anzoategui: So in terms of predictors, it is always a good idea to keep track of cost related variables. And these are leading indicators that we both Bob and I would follow closely.Used car prices, repair costs, which are also CPI components, are leading indicators of auto insurance inflation. And both of them are decelerating. Used car prices are actually falling. So there is deflation in that component. But I think rate filings are a key indicator to identify the turning point we are expecting this cycle.Seth Carpenter: Can

Financial markets can be sensitive to news cycles, but our Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research offers a word of caution about reacting to recent headlines about the US presidential election.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about development in the upcoming US elections.It's Wednesday, July 17th at 10:30am in New York. Financial markets are starting to reflect the possibility of a Trump presidency. Investors may be taking cues from a few current developments. There’s the recent weakening of President Biden’s polling numbers in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. There’s also the ongoing discussion about whether he will remain the Democratic nominee. And there's also former President Trump’s increased win probabilities in prediction markets, as well as the perception that Democrats will have more trouble pursuing their agenda in the wake of the assassination attempt against him. To that end we’ve seen moves in key areas of markets sensitive to what we have argued will be the policy impacts of a Trump presidency, including a steepening of the US Treasury yield curve. But – a word of caution. These market reactions to recent political events may be rational, but it's not clear they’re sustainable.  First, there are plausible ways investors’ perceptions of the likely outcomes of this election could shift. Voters can have very short memories, resulting in polls shifting to partisan priors. This happened with popular opinion on elected officials following notable incidents in recent years – such as the events of January 6th, 2021, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and more. Also, if President Biden were to withdraw as a candidate, it’s possible investors could perceive that a different candidate could tighten the race. For example, there have been recent surveys showing alternate Democratic candidates polling better than President Biden. Second, there’s also room for investors to misunderstand the policy path that could follow an election outcome as well as the impact of that path. For example, we’ve seen some recent press articles linking the broadening out of positive performance in the equity market to the likelihood of a Trump win on perceived benefits of friendlier tax policies that might result from this outcome. But if investors only focus on that policy, they’re not incorporating the potential offsetting effects that could come from policies that could challenge the economic growth outlook, such as higher tariffs – something former President Trump has advocated for. So bottom line, it makes sense to interrogate what seems like clear links between the upcoming election and markets.Some linkages are strong, and it’s possible that will make for a good investment strategy; others are weak and may break under scrutiny. We’ll help you sort it out here. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Chief Global Cross-Asset Strategist explains why she sees a future for the 60/40 portfolio strategy, which worked well for over half a century and may continue to perform well – with some modifications.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss the future of the 60/40 equity/bond portfolio. It’s Tuesday, July 16th, at 10am in New York.Now investors have been asking: Is the 60/40 portfolio -- which allocates 60 percent to stocks and 40 percent to bonds -- dead? After all, the last two years saw some of the worst returns of this strategy in decades. Now, we think the concerns about this widely used strategy are not unfounded, but definitely a bit exaggerated. Exactly how one thinks about the right mix of equities and bonds within this type of portfolio though will need to change.The strategy of investing 60 percent of a portfolio in equities and 40 percent in bonds to lower portfolio risk evolved from modern portfolio theory in the 1950s. To succeed, bonds must be less volatile than stocks and the correlation between stock and bond returns can't be 1 -- because that would mean a perfect positive correlation between stocks and bonds. And this correlation has been below 1 and low for a long time because growth and inflation have moved up and down in tandem for a long time. Now what does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Well, typically in an environment where equities are rallying on the back of strong growth, inflation is also increasing – which in turn means that nominal yields stay high, dampening bond returns; and vice-versa in a recessionary scenario. Now, in both of those cases, the negative stock-bond return correlations is related to the positive growth inflation correlation. Which explains why the strategy of the 60/40 equity/bond portfolio worked so well for decades, particularly in the low-vol, high-growth inflation correlation, low stock-bond returns correlation environment of the late aughts to 2010s. Unfortunately for investors though, this has not been the backdrop for the last few years. The highly unusual macro environment coming out of pandemic broke that relationship between growth and inflation, which in turn broke the relationship between stocks and bonds, led to a spike in fixed income volatility, and dragged bond returns to lowest levels in decades over the last couple of years. But we believe these factors will slowly normalize, which means 60/40-like strategies should work again. While the levels of correlation and bond volatility going forward may look different from history, and definitely different from the QE period, as long as bonds have lower risks than stocks – and there’s little to suggest they won’t – bonds will continue to be good diversifiers. But it’s important for investors to ask themselves: what could drive correlation between stocks and bonds going forward? Well, longer term, the path of correlation between the two assets depends in part on the relationship between economic growth and inflation, as I touched on earlier. And this is where AI can come in. Positive productivity shocks from GenAI tech diffusion and the energy transition may change that dynamic between growth and inflation. And at the same time, decoupling in the world’s key economic regions as a result of the transition to a multipolar world can alter the correlation between regional equities and rates. So, will the 60/40 portfolio be the strategy of the future? Or is it going to be more like 70/30 or even 50/50? Slower normalization of volatility and correlation means that a portfolio with more equity could yield better risk/reward than a 60/40 mix. On the other hand, as the world’s 65+ year-old population continues to grow over the next decades, this aging demographic may demand higher allocations to less volatile assets, even at the expense of lower returns. Or maybe, just maybe, there is another solution. Instead of a simple 60/40 like strategy, investors can look beyond government bonds to other diversifiers, and building a multi-asset portfolio with more flexibility. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Retail analyst and U.S. Internet analyst connect the dots on how technology is helping the retail industry to cash in on the future.----- Transcript -----Simeon Gutman: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Simeon Gutman, Morgan Stanley's Hardlines, Broadlines, and Food Retail Analyst.Brian Nowak: And I'm Brian Nowak, Morgan Stanley's US Internet Analyst.Simeon Gutman: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll hear how retailers are using technology to make a comeback and set themselves up for the future.It's Monday, July 15th at 6pm in London.Brian Nowak: And it's 1pm in New York.Simeon Gutman: Retail has taken a big hit over the last few years. The long tail of the pandemic, outbreaks of war and inflation have had a big impact on the landscape. However, our research suggests retail is finding its feet, and technology is playing a significant role.Automation, AI, and retail media are the game changers here. And we're seeing retailers of larger scale and larger size disproportionately invest in these technologies -- which means it will not benefit all retailers equally.My colleague Brian is here to help explain the technology and how these are manifesting themselves across the internet and technology landscapes. Brian, can you talk about how these things are materializing across your coverage universe?Brian Nowak: Thanks, Simeon. Across the US internet space, we're seeing early emerging use cases for Generative AI of many types. We are seeing improved targeting on the advertising side. We are seeing new diffusion and creative models being built where advertisers can create new types of advertising copy using large language models. We are seeing new forms of customer service using large language models and Generative AI. And in effect, we are seeing companies across the entire internet space better analyze their first party data to drive more new people and customers to their platforms -- to drive higher conversion and share of wallets from those customers. And ultimately more durable multiyear top-line growth, which in some cases is also leading to higher free cash flow growth over the long term as well. It's early, but it's very encouraging with what we're seeing for Generative AI and retail media across the space.Simeon Gutman: Can you talk about in more detail how retail media is influencing the success and the prospects for some of your companies?Brian Nowak: Retail media is a emerging, rapidly growing, new high margin revenue stream that is moving across the internet space. Large companies are analyzing more of their data and essentially creating new advertising units that users and consumers can click on to drive transactions. And they're finding ways to better link these advertising dollars to transactions and ultimately creating a new revenue stream that we think is going to drive more durable top-line growth -- and because of its high margin nature, also more durable, multiyear free cash flow growth. It is benefiting the commerce players. It is benefiting the online advertising players. And it's also benefiting the advertising technology players.So with that as a backdrop, Simeon, where are you seeing Generative AI, retail media, and maybe even automation, start to manifest itself throughout the retail landscape?Simeon Gutman: Those are the three pillars of technology that are influencing retailers. Taking a quick step back, what's changing is that market share in retail is concentrating and consolidating among the largest players. And if you think about the investments required for some of these new capabilities, the companies that have the greatest ability to invest should see the greatest benefits. That means that the big could get bigger at an even faster rate. And this is why the stakes in retail are growing even faster.Now with, respect to these technologies. Let's start with AI. AI is helping retailers analyze big pieces of data that they never had an ability to do in such a quick way. That could help them refine their search criteria to consumers scanning a website. That could help them improve the algorithms in a distribution center with robots creating orders.Second, speaking of robots, bringing automation to distribution centers, supply chains for retailers can cost anywhere between 2 to 6 per cent of sales. There's a significant opportunity to reduce the amount of labor -- human labor -- in these distribution centers by automating them; whether it's dry goods, whether it's grocery items, as tricky as frozen and perishable items.And then lastly, retail media, the way that you mentioned, Brian, the benefit to your companies is very similar to retailers. There are now advertising dollars that are moving into new channels, whether it's closed loop advertising in store or retail media that's appearing on websites -- where some of the larger and more successful companies have a lot of traffic and advertisers are intrigued to show them offers a

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why he expects the US Federal Reserve to make three rate cuts before the end of the year, starting in September.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about why it's looking more likely that the Fed should, and will, cut interests rates several times this year.It's Friday, July 12th at 2pm in London.Last week, we discussed why the case for Fed rate cuts this year was strengthening. Credit markets generally don’t care too much about the exact timing or pace of policy rates, but they do care if a central bank is behind the curve. That’s because over the last 40 years, the worst returns for credit have repeatedly overlapped with periods where the Fed was too late in reversing tight monetary policy. After all, interest rates impact the economy with a pretty long and variable lag; and a interest rate cut today may not be fully felt in the economy for 12 months – or even longer. It’s therefore important for a central bank to be proactive. And so, with the recent US economic data softer, and the Fed appearing in little rush to act, the concern was straightforward: if the Fed is waiting for signs of economic weakness to be obvious, it will take too long to lower interest rates to blunt this. The Fed will be behind the curve. This risk of acting too late hasn’t gone away, and it’s a key reason why we think credit investors should be rooting for economic data in the second half of this year to remain solid, in line with Morgan Stanley’s base case. But this week did bring some events that suggest the Fed may start to adjust rates soon. First, in testimony before the US Congress, Chair Powell repeatedly emphasized that the risks for the US economy are becoming more balanced. Previously, the Fed had appeared to be much more focused on an upside scenario where conditions are hotter rather than a scenario where growth slowed unexpectedly. Second, in data released yesterday, US Consumer Price Inflation – or CPI – came in lower than expected. Overall, prices actually fell month-over-month, something that hasn’t happened since May of 2020, a time when the pandemic was raging, and Fed rates were near zero percent. Morgan Stanley’s base case is that moderating inflation will lead the Fed to cut interest rates by 25 basis points in September, November and December of this year. For credit, the question of “what do these rate cuts” mean is an ‘and’ statement. If the Fed is lowering rates and growth is holding up, you are potentially looking at a mid-1990s scenario, the best period for credit in the modern era. But if the Fed is cutting and growth is weak … well, over and over again, that has not been good. We remain constructive on credit, expecting three Fed rate cuts this year to coexist with moderate growth. But weaker data remains the risk. For credit, good data is good. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Freight Transportation & Airlines Analyst discusses the key takeaways from his mid-year corporate travel survey, which includes a number of positive trends for the second half of 2024.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Ravi Shanker, Morgan Stanley’s Freight Transportation and Airlines analyst. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss my expectations for corporate travel in the second half of this year. It’s Thursday, July 11th, at 10am in New York. More and more business travelers are packing their bags and taking a flight for business meetings. In fact, our corporate travel survey suggests that a record 50 percent of respondents marked their travel itineraries as returning to pre-COVID levels. As well, corporate travel budgets are expected to be up five to seven percent year-over-year in 2024, and about six percent in 2025. This means significantly more flights, hotels and car bookings for corporate travel.Interestingly, this is the first survey since 2021 that larger enterprises were more optimistic on corporate travel demand compared to smaller enterprises.The shift to virtual meetings over the next two years will likely be stable. Companies continue to predict that 12-13 percent of travel volume will be replaced by virtual meetings in 2024 and 2025. Looking ahead, respondents expect this level to hold through 2025, supporting some level of permanent shift we think.For US airlines specifically, we have started to see more signs of life within the corporate space. Several US airlines are pointing to noticeable improvement in the first quarter after fairly stagnant volumes at the end of 2023. We also saw a reversal from prior surveys with larger corporations recovering faster than smaller enterprises, which had initially led the post-COVID recovery.This positive trend in airline demand is supportive of our attractive view on US aerospace, as well. Even though global air traffic has already reached pre-COVID-19 levels, it is still about 32 percent below where the trendline would have been if COVID-19 had not happened, which leaves more room for growth.For business aviation, private jet use should remain strong and stable as a large majority of survey participants are not planning to change their business jet travel. Higher interest rates and a potentially slowing economy could lead to a potential slowdown in business jet demand, but this hasn’t happened so far as there continues to be limited excess capacity in the industry as well as continued strong demand for aircraft.Our colleagues in Europe note that although near-term indicators are positive, 40 percent of European respondents now do not expect corporate travel volumes to return to 2019 levels. This is concerning for the longer-term prospects of European corporate demand growth, which appears to be weaker than US growth.Whether you're flying private jets or commercial, or choosing to keep your team meetings virtual, we'll continue to monitor corporate travel trends, and let you know of any updates to those flight manifests. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

U.S., French and Indian elections may have a minimal effect on equity markets, particularly in the short term, according to our Global Head of Fixed Income and our Chief Global Cross Asset Strategist.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research.Serena Tang: And I'm Serena Tang, chief Global Cross Asset Strategist,Michael Zezas: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll discuss what the elections in the US and Europe mean for global markets.It's Wednesday, July 9th at 10am in New York.As investors digest the results of the French election and anticipate the upcoming US presidential election, there's some key debates that are surfacing. And so I wanted to sit down with Serena to dig into these issues that are top of mind for investors.Serena, do you expect the upcoming US elections will impact markets in the run up to November?Serena Tang: Significantly, not likely -- because if we look at history, for stocks for example, in any election year, returns don't look significantly different from any other year.Serena Tang: My team ran some cross asset analysis on market behavior in and out of prior US elections using as much data as we have. And what has been very interesting is that whether a Democrat or Republican candidate eventually takes the White House, that doesn't change the trend of returns into an election.The form of the future elected government, whether it is divided or unified, that has also never really bothered stock markets before the vote. And you can see very, very similar patterns in bond yields, the dollar and gold. Now, what this means is that even if an investor has perfect foresight and know the results of the elections now, it won't necessarily give them an edge over the next few months.Serena Tang: Now, beyond the election is really when you see performance in various election outcome scenarios really diverge. So, whether the election was tight or not seemed to have led US rates to see very different levels of returns 12 months out from an election. Whether the outcome means a unified or divided government saw very large swings in gold prices.Now there are a lot of caveats. Every election is different. The economic conditions in every election is different. And as much as we talk about other historical periods, the truth is there aren't a lot of data points to work with. Data for S&P 500 going back to 1927 reaches the most far back among the major markets, but even then it only covers 23 presidential elections.So what I'm trying to say is there have been a lot of presidents, but there aren't a lot of precedents, at least for markets.Michael Zezas: The US election isn't the only election making headlines this year. For example, we just had an election in France that had a surprising result. How does the outcome there affect your outlook on the market?Serena Tang: It doesn't, in short. It doesn't change our bullish view on European equities at all. As you know, we have been constructive on that market since January and added significant exposure in our asset allocation then -- very much on the back of our European equity strategist Marina Zavolok coming out with an out of consensus bullish call for European stocks.Serena Tang: We like the market because of its cheap optionality and convexity. It has about 20 per cent revenue exposure to US but at much cheaper valuation. And it has about 20 per cent revenue exposure to EM, meaning should we get a growth surprise to the upside; you're geared to that but at much lower volatility than owning EM equities outright.Now, none of this has changed post French elections, and we also don't see significant increase in bearish tail risks. If you look at other markets like Euro IG corporate credit or the euro, those markets are suggesting risks in France are idiosyncratic, not systemic. So we maintain our overweight in European stocks.Serena Tang: Everything that I just said is also true for our bullish view on Indian equities, even after elections a month ago. Ridham Desai, head of India research, argued the election outcome there is likely to usher in more structural reforms and really reinforces our forecast of 20 per cent annual earnings growth over next five years, sustaining India's longest and strongest bull market ever. Bullish secular factors for Indian equities have not changed and therefore our bullish view on Indian equities have not changed.Michael Zezas: And elections have consequences for how countries interact with one another. And how their policies differ from one another. And one area of the markets that tend to be sensitive to this is the foreign exchange markets. So are there any impacts you're looking for around foreign currencies?Serena Tang: Yes, in particular, the dollar. But let me start with the euro first. Because I talked earlier about our bullish

Record-high prices remain a key concern for buyers in the U.S. housing market. Our Co-Heads of Securitized Product Research dig into the data, explaining why they still believe a deceleration in home price growth will come.----- Transcript -----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley.James Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. It's Tuesday, July 9th, at 1pm in New York. Jay Bacow: Jim, housing headlines just keep coming. Home prices are at record highs. What does that mean? How should we be thinking about that? James Egan: So, that has been a fun headline, and according to several measures of home prices, we are at record highs. But, let's put that into context. We've actually set a new record high for home prices every month for the past ten months. In fact, prior to a 12-month hiatus from July of ’22 to June of ’23, home prices had actually hit a new record high every month for 68 consecutive months. Jay Bacow: Alright, so if we're just talking about levels, it's important. But given that I'm a physicist by training, so are rates of change; and for that matter, changes to the rate of change, or acceleration, if you will. If there's something different about the current record of US home prices that is worth discussing, that would be interesting. James Egan: We think there is. Actually two months ago, home prices set a new record high. But it was also the first time in ten months that the pace of year-over-year home price appreciation did not accelerate. This month the pace of appreciation actually started to decelerate. As listeners of this podcast might remember, we've been calling for the pace of year-over-year home price appreciation to slow from above 6.5 per cent to just two percent by December. We are still above six percent today, but this could be the beginning of that deceleration. Jay Bacow: Right. And if there's going to be deceleration, Newton would say there needs to be some force that causes it. And my understanding is you thought that that force that causes it would be sale inventories increasing. Has that been the case? James Egan: Indeed, it has been actually. Total for sale inventory has increased for six consecutive months. And the pace of that growth is accelerating. Now, we do want to highlight that overall supply remains very tight. That part of the housing narrative hasn't changed. If we take a step back and look at the whole market, total months of supply are at just 4.5 per cent. Anything below six is really considered a seller's market there. On the other hand, this is the highest level that the market has experienced since the first half of 2020, which is another argument in our minds for the pace of home price appreciation to decelerate. But once we remove these pandemic era lows, four and a half months is close to the lowest level of the past 30 plus years. Jay Bacow: Alright, now sticking on the level context. Home prices weren't just the only thing that set a record level these days. Pending home sales just set a new record low in May. James Egan: Right, that's also the case. Now, we do want to put the record into context here. The pending home sales index that we're referring to only goes back to 2001. But over that 23 plus years, the May print was the lowest number that we've seen. Jay Bacow: Alright, so given all of that, how are you thinking about demand for housing amidst increasing supply? James Egan: Right. So this is a pretty important question. When it comes to demand at these levels, affordability remains very challenged. One of the primary questions for the US housing market moving forward is going to be the interplay between the absolute level of affordability and the direction and rate of change. Now, we are far from being able to declare a winner here. Sales volumes have increased off of 12 year lows from the fourth quarter of 2023; but at the same time, there are several demand indicators that are having trouble achieving liftoff, if you will. Pending home sales, for instance. They're not falling as fast as they have been, over the past two plus years; but they're also having a hard time achieving some sort of escape velocity as they continue to fall on a year-over year-basis. Mortgage applications for purchase -- another one of our leading indicators -- they're experiencing a similar dynamic. The first half of 2024 has been a noticeable second derivative improvement versus 2023, but that improvement has slowed and applications are still falling on a year-over-year basis. Now, part of this is going to be a function of mortgage rates going forward. Jay, what are we thinking there? Jay Bacow: Now, the biggest driver of mortgage rates is going to be the level of treasury rates. And our r

Inflation continues to be a key issue for voters in elections around the world. Our CIO and Chief US Equity strategist explains its potential influence on the upcoming US presidential election, and how investors may react to potential outcomes of this race.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the consequences of elections on policy and markets. It's Monday, July 8th at 2:30pm in New York.  So let’s get after it.  Several important elections around the world have taken place with important implications for policy and markets. Most notably, elections in India, Mexico, the UK and France have all garnered the attention of investors.While these elections are unique to each country, there does appear to be a growing focus on the issue of economic inequalities and immigration. While these inequalities have been building for decades, the COVID pandemic and policies implemented to deal with it have ushered in a higher focus on these disparities and a general level of uncertainty about the future on the part of many citizens.Of all the changes affecting the average person most adversely, inflation stands out as the most challenging. While the rate of change on inflation has been steadily falling since 2022, the price level of a number of goods and services remains challenging for many. Prices for basic items like food, shelter, healthcare, insurance and utilities are 30 to 50 per cent higher than they were pre-pandemic. Offsetting some of this increase has been the rise in home equity and financial asset prices, but this only helps those who are asset owners. Fixed rate mortgages have also been a notable positive offset to rising prices and interest rates. For many, there is a natural arbitrage between these pre-existing, historically low mortgage rates and money market rates. Once again, such an arbitrage is only available to those who have large piles of cash.In our view, these dynamics further the case that inflation is going to play a major role in this year's upcoming U.S. election much like it is having an impact globally.  The recent US Presidential debate prompted inquiries from investors on what a potential Trump win or a potential Republican sweep could mean for markets. Based on initial market reactions and our conversations with clients, there is a consistent view that both growth and longer-term interest rates could move higher under this outcome. This has led to a greater appetite to rotate one’s equity portfolio toward value and cyclical stocks, which also worked leading into the 2016 election. Market expectations for fiscal expansion, reflation and less regulation under a Trump Presidency support such moves.   However, we think there’s also a couple of important dynamics to consider. First, we would argue that the cycle is more mature today than it was in 2016 as evidenced by the two-and-a-half-year decline in the Conference Board Leading Economic Indicator and the nearly 2-year inversion of the yield curve. Given a later cycle environment is historically a backdrop where the market pays up for quality and liquidity, we advise staying up the quality curve and away from small cap cyclicals, which worked in 2016. In short, the state of the business cycle right now is more important than the election outcome. As such, we think investors should stay selective within cyclicals.   Second, the market welcomed a reflationary playbook in 2016. Inflation was not a headwind to consumers in the way it is now, and the US economy was recovering from a global manufacturing recession, the recovery of which was aided by the prospects of a pro-fiscal/reflationary policy regime. Today, inflation is a notable headwind to consumers as discussed previously and fiscal sustainability dynamics remain top of mind for the bond market. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Original release date April 15, 2024: Markets are suggesting that spirits consumption will return to historical growth levels post-pandemic, but our Head of European Consumer Staples Research disagrees.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Sarah Simon, Head of the European Consumer Staples team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll talk about a surprising trend in the global spirits market.It's Monday, April 15, at 2pm in London. We all remember vividly the COVID-19 period when we spent much more on goods than services, particularly on goods that could be delivered to our homes. Not surprisingly, spirits consumption experienced a super-cycle during the pandemic. But as the world returned to normal, the demand for spirits has dropped off. The market believes that after a period of normalization, the US spirits market will return to mid-single-digit growth in line with history; but we think that’s too optimistic.Changes in demographics and consumer behavior make it much more likely that the US market will grow only modestly from here. There are several key challenges to the volume of US alcohol consumption in the coming years. Sobriety and moderation of alcohol intake are two rising trends. In addition, there’s the increased use of GLP-1 anti-obesity drugs, which appear to quell users' appetite for alcoholic beverages. And finally, there’s stiffer regulation, including the lowering of alcohol limits for driving.A slew of recent survey data points to consumer intention to reduce alcohol intake. A February 2023 IWSR survey reported that 50 per cent of US drinkers are moderating their consumption. Meanwhile, a January 2024 NCSolutions survey reported that 41 per cent of respondents are trying to drink less, an increase of 7 percentage points from the prior year. And importantly, this intention was most concentrated among younger drinkers, with 61 per cent of Gen Z planning to drink less in 2024, up from 40 per cent in the prior year's survey. Meanwhile, 49 per cent of Millennials had a similar intention, up 26 per cent year on year.Why is all this happening? And why now? Perhaps the increasingly vocal commentary by public bodies linking alcohol to cancer is really hitting home. Last November, the World Health Organization stated that "the higher the amount of alcohol consumed, the higher the risk of developing cancer" but also that "half of all alcohol-attributable cancers in the WHO European Region are caused by ‘light’ and ‘moderate’ alcohol consumption. A recent Gallup survey of Americans indicated that young adults are particularly concerned that moderate drinking is unhealthy, with 52 per cent holding this view, up from 34 per cent five years ago. Another explanation for the increased prevalence of non-drinking among the youngest group of drinkers may be demographic makeup: the proportion of non-White 18- to 34-year-olds has nearly doubled over the past two decades.And equally, the cost of alcohol, which saw steep price increases in the last couple of years, seems to be a reason for increased moderation. Spending on alcohol stepped up materially over the COVID-19 period when there were more limited opportunities for spending. With life returning to normal post pandemic, consumers have other – more attractive or more pressing – opportunities for expenditure.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more people to find the show.

Central banks play a crucial role in monetary policy and moderating the business cycle. Our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why, despite their power, these financial institutions can’t quickly steer through choppy economic waters.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about why credit may start to get more concerned that the Fed will make the same mistake it often does.It's Wednesday, July 3rd at 2pm in London.Central banks are among the most powerful actors in financial markets, and investors everywhere hang on their every word, and potential next move. If possible, that seemed even more true recently, as central banks first intervened aggressively in bond markets during the height of COVID, and then raised interest rates at the fastest pace in over 40 years. Indeed, you could even take this a step further: many investors you speak to will argue central banks are the most important force in markets. All else comes second. But this view of Fed supremacy over the market and economy has an important caveat. For all of their power, the Federal Reserve did not prevent the recession of 1990. It did not prevent the dotcom bust or recession of 2001. It did not prevent the Great Financial Crisis or Great Recession of 2007-2009. These periods have represented the vast majority of credit losses over the last 35 years. And so, for all of the power of central banks, these recessions, and their associated default cycles in credit, have kept happening. The reasons for this are varied and debatable. But the central issue is that the economy is a bit like a supertanker; it’s hard to turn quickly. You need to make adjustments well in advance, and often well before the signs of danger are clear. Currently, the Fed is still pressing the economic brakes. Interest rates from the Federal Reserve are well above so-called neutral; that is, where the Fed thinks interest rates neither boost, nor hold back, the economy. The justification for riding the break, so to speak, is that inflation earlier this year has still been higher than expected. But in the last two months, this inflation has rapidly cooled. Our economists think this trend will accelerate in the second half of the year, and ultimately allow the Fed to cut interest rates in September, November, and December. Still-high rates and cooling inflation isn’t a problem when the economic data is strong. But more recently, this data has cooled. If that weaker data continues, credit investors may worry that central banks are too focused on the high inflation that’s now behind us, and not focused enough on the potential slowing ahead. They’ll worry that once again, it may be too late to turn the proverbial economic ship. We’d stress that the risks of this scenario are still low; but late-reacting central banks have – historically, repeatedly – been credit’s biggest vulnerability. It makes it all the more important, that as we head into summer, that the data holds up. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today. And for those in the US, a very happy Fourth of July.

Our Global Head of Fixed Income recaps the aftermath of the first U.S. presidential debate, and how markets may react if forthcoming poll data shows a meaningful shift in the race.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the US elections and its impact on markets.It's Tuesday, July 2nd at 10:30am in New York. For months, investors have been asking us when markets will start paying attention to the US presidential election. Well, we think that time arrived with last week’s Presidential debate. The media coverage that followed revealed that many Democratic party officials became concerned about President Biden’s ability to win the November election. This understandably led many to ask if the race for the White House had meaningfully changed; If it was no longer a close one – and if so, what would that mean for markets that might have to start pricing in the impacts of a Trump Presidency. On the first question: While we think it's too early to conclude that the race is no longer a close one, we expect some data in the next week or two that could clarify this. The few polls that have been released following the debate show that voters are increasingly concerned about Biden’s ability to win; but they also show a level of support for Biden similar to what he enjoyed before the debates. What we haven’t seen yet is a set of high-quality polls gauging swing state voter preferences. And even modest deterioration in Biden’s support there could meaningfully boost Trump’s prospects. That’s because, going into the debate, polls showed former President Trump with a small but consistent lead in national and key swing state polls. Nothing outside the polling margin of error. But it still suggested that for President Biden to improve his odds of winning, he’d be served well by having a strong debate performance that moved the polls more in his favor.  It doesn’t appear that this has happened, and if polls show movement in the other direction for Biden, it would be fair to think of Trump as something of a favorite. But only for the time being. There’d still be time and catalysts for the race to change – including another scheduled debate in September. If we do end up with a race where Former President Trump is a more clear favorite, even if just for a short time, there could be reflections in the market. As we’ve previously discussed, a Trump win increases the chances of more of the expiring tax cuts being extended. The benefits of those cuts most clearly accrue to key sectors like energy and telecom, so there’s potential outperformance there.  In fixed-income – a steeper US Treasury yield curve is an outcome our macro strategy team is particularly attuned to. That’s because a Trump presidency brings greater uncertainty about future fiscal policy, which could be reflected in relatively higher yields for longer maturity bonds. But it also increases the chances of policy choices that create near term pressure on economic growth that could push shorter maturity yields lower. This includes higher tariffs and tighter immigration policies. So bottom line, the markets are paying attention. And the race is sure to have many more twists and turns. We’ll keep you updated on how we’re navigating it. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Rising rents and mortgage payments have been at the center of the inflation discussion. Our Global Chief Economist assesses whether monetary policy can effectively blunt those figures. ----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the housing market, inflation, growth and monetary policy. It's Monday, July 1st, at 11am in New York. Housing is at the center of many macro debates from growth to inflation. And when you put those two together – monetary policy. House prices have continued to rise despite high interest rates, which gives the impression to some of stalled deflation and forces consumers at times to make some really difficult choices. And in some economies, there's a seeming lack of responsiveness of housing to higher interest rates. All of which tends to prompt questions about the efficacy of monetary policy. So where are we? We think monetary policy is still working through housing as it usually does, but supply shortages, or in some places just idiosyncratic factors like buildable lands or permitting, that's supported home prices. And as has been the case across several sectors in this business cycle, there really are some factors about housing that's just different in this cycle than in previous ones. For the U.S., a key part of the housing story has been the mortgage lock in for homeowners. Our strategists have noted that the gap between the current new mortgage rate and the average effective mortgage rate is at historical highs. And the share of 30 year fixed rate mortgages is at its highest in a decade. Consequently, the inventory of existing houses has remained low because homeowners who have those really low mortgages are reluctant to move unless they have to. The market has become thinner with less available supply; and then if we think more broadly for the economy, there's a risk of labor market frictions if that mortgage lock in also reduces labor mobility. Now, there will be a decline in mortgage rates if we get the modest easing cycle from the Fed that we expect. But that decline will be similarly modest so that gap in rates will not be fully closed even if it narrows. And so there might be some uplift to supply of housing, but it might not be huge. That decline in mortgage rates can also supply demand, so then we have to think about the net of this shift in demand and the shift in supply. And ultimately what we think is going to happen is that there'll be a moderation in home price appreciation, but not an outright decline in home prices.First, the choice of housing for a lot of households is do you buy or do you rent? If you've got high home prices and high mortgages, buying is much less affordable and so it pushes people into renting, which could push up rents. That phenomenon is partly responsible for the surge in rents that we've seen over the past few years. In the longer run, there should be a sort of arbitrage condition between home prices and rents. And while rising home prices can impinge the spending power for first time homebuyers, rising house prices can actually boost sentiment and consumption for existing homeowners. And that mortgage lock in that I talked about before? Well, that can actually support aggregate consumption to some degree because now there's predictability of cash flows and the monthly payment is pretty low. So what do we do when we take all of this together? The housing market might be telling us that monetary policy is working a bit less effectively than historically, but not that monetary policy is not working. Home price appreciation is moderating. Housing starts have slowed, as usual, following those big rate increases. But that slowing? It's actually been a bit inconsistent because mortgage lock has meant that new supply is the only supply. Existing home sales, by contrast, are just plain weak. They're about as weak as they were around the financial crisis. We do not think the housing market overall is at risk of collapse, but monetary policy is restraining activity in a very familiar way. Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research makes the case against the popular notion that solid economic data would be bad for markets, and instead offers a rationale for why now, more than ever, is the time for investors to root for positive economic developments.  ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about why good data … is good.It's Friday, June 28th at 2pm in London. One of the bigger investor debates of 2024 is whether stronger or weaker economic data is the preferred outcome for the market. This isn’t a trick question.  Post-COVID, a large spike of inflation led to the fastest pace of interest rate hikes by central banks in over forty years. And so there’s been an idea that weaker economic data, which would reduce that inflationary pressure and make central banks more likely to cut interest rates, is actually the better outcome for the market. Those lower interest rates after all might be helpful for moving the market higher or tighter. And stronger economic data, in contrast, could lead to more inflationary pressure, and even more rate increases. And so by this logic, bad data is good … and good data, well, would be bad. This “bad is good” mindset was prominent in the Autumn of 2022 and again in September of 2023, as markets weakened on stronger data and fears that it could drive further rate hikes. We saw the idea return this year, amidst higher-than-expected inflation readings in the first quarter. But we currently think this logic is misplaced. For markets, and certainly for credit, we think those who are constructive, like ourselves, are very much rooting for solid economic data. For now, good is good. Our first argument here is general. Over a long swath of available data, the worst returns for credit have consistently overlapped with the worst economic growth. Hoping for weaker data is, historically speaking, playing with fire, raising the odds that such weakness isn’t just a blip, and opens the door for much worse outcomes for both the economy and credit. But our second reason is more specific to right now. Central to this idea that bad data would be better for the market is the assumption that central banks would look at any poor data, change their tune and come to the market’s aid by lowering interest rates quickly. I think recent events really challenge that sort of thinking. While the European central bank did lower interest rates earlier this month, it struck a pretty cautious tone about any further easing. And the Federal Reserve actually raised its expected level of inflation and projected rate path on the same day that consumer price inflation in the US came in much lower than expected. Both increased the risk that these central banks are being more backward looking, and will be slow to react to weaker economic data if it materialises. And so, we think, credit investors should be hoping for good data, which would avoid a scenario where backward-looking central banks are too slow to change their tune. I’d note that this is what Morgan Stanley’s economists are forecasting, with expectations that growth is a little over 2 percent this year in the US and a little over 1 percent in the Euro Area for this year. We expect the economic data to hold up, and for that to be the better scenario for credit. If the data turns down, we may need to change our tune. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

If you're a listener to Thoughts on the Market you may be interested in Season 2 of our podcast: What Should I Do With My Money? ----------------Money is emotional and that can make it difficult to know if we’re making the right decisions. This season, the stakes are high. From prenups to passing a legacy to their children, from affording a dream home to literally wanting to save the planet, our guests get to the heart of what matters to them most and you get answers to some of the questions you might have yourself. No matter where you are with your finances, you don’t have to navigate them alone. Our Financial Advisors show once again that a little guidance can go a long way. Join us to hear how a conversation can turn concern into confidence, hosted by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s Jamie Roô.-----This material has been prepared for educational purposes only. It does not provide individually tailored investment advice. It has been prepared without regard to the individual financial circumstances and objectives of persons who receive it. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”) recommends that investors independently evaluate particular investments and strategies, and encourages investors to seek the advice of a Morgan Stanley Financial Advisor. The appropriateness of a particular investment or strategy will depend on an investor’s individual circumstances and objectives.Important information about your relationship with your Financial Advisor and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC when using a Financial Planning tool. When your Financial Advisor prepares a Financial Plan, they will be acting in an investment advisory capacity with respect to the delivery of your Financial Plan. To understand the differences between brokerage and advisory relationships, you should consult your Financial Advisor, or review our Understanding Your Brokerage and Investment Advisory Relationships brochure available at https://www.morganstanley.com/wealth-relationshipwithms/pdfs/understandingyourrelationship.pdfYou have sole responsibility for making all investment decisions with respect to the implementation of a Financial Plan. You may implement the Financial Plan at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC or at another firm. If you engage or have engaged Morgan Stanley, it will act as your broker, unless you ask it, in writing, to act as your investment adviser on any particular account.Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (“Morgan Stanley”), its affiliates and Morgan Stanley Financial Advisors and Private Wealth Advisors do not provide tax or legal advice. Clients should consult their tax advisor for matters involving taxation and tax planning and their attorney for matters involving trust and estate planning and other legal matters.Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) investments in a portfolio may experience performance that is lower or higher than a portfolio not employing such practices. Portfolios with ESG restrictions and strategies as well as ESG investments may not be able to take advantage of the same opportunities or market trends as portfolios where ESG criteria is not applied. There are inconsistent ESG definitions and criteria within the industry, as well as multiple ESG ratings providers that provide ESG ratings of the same subject companies and/or securities that vary among the providers. Certain issuers of investments may have differing and inconsistent views concerning ESG criteria where the ESG claims made in offering documents or other literature may overstate ESG impact. ESG designations are as of the date of this material, and no assurance is provided that the underlying assets have maintained or will maintain and such designation or any stated ESG compliance. As a result, it is difficult to compare ESG investment products or to evaluate an ESG investment product in comparison to one that does not focus on ESG. Investors should also independently consider whether the ESG investment product meets their own ESG objectives or criteria.There is no assurance that an ESG investing strategy or techniques employed will be successful. Past performance is not a guarantee or a dependable measure of future results.Insurance products are offered in conjunction with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC’s licensed insurance agency affiliates.Signal Awards 2023 – Bronze WinnerSource: Signal Award Winners (October 2023) 2023 Signal Awards receive votes from the public voting stage, podcast fans cast over 130,000 votes for the Signal Listener’s Choice award. Signal Award Winners were selected by the Signal Academy. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC is not affiliated with Signal Awards. For more information, see www.signalawards.com. ©2024 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC.FCS Portfolio Awards 2024 – BronzeSource: Financial Community Society Portfolio Awards (May 2024) 2024 FCS Portfolio Awards. The Portfolio Awards competition recognizes creative excellence

As the infrastructure needs for artificial intelligence soar, so does the need for financing. Our Chief Fixed Income Strategist talks about the role credit markets can play in providing capital to power the sector.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Fixed Income Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the role of credit markets in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.  It's Thursday, June 27th at 1 pm in New York. Technology diffusion driven by artificial intelligence has been a defining theme for investors over the last few years. Recent developments in generative AI, or GenAI powered by large language models, have the potential to bring transformational changes across the economy. Today, I want to talk about the role of credit markets in this AI revolution. The infrastructure requirements of AI – semi fabs, data centers and the energy resources to power the Gen AI models – are enormous. Our analysts estimate that GenAI power demand will rise rapidly, reaching 224 Trillion Watt hours by 2027 in their base case which is roughly close to Spain's total 2022 power consumption. So, it goes without saying that AI infrastructure will need substantial capex. Early on, much of the AI capex has been funded by a combination of venture capital and retained earnings from cash-rich technology companies; in other words funded by equity capital. As the focus shifts from early innovators and enablers of AI to adopters of AI, these needs are bound to grow and will require more efficient forms of capital. We think that credit markets in various forms – unsecured, secured, securitized and asset-backed – will have a major role to play in this transformation. So far, debt financing has played a relatively small part in funding technology companies, especially AI beneficiaries. The sector has significant capacity to add debt without a material deterioration in their credit metrics. This capacity is also complemented by an investor base with a significant dry powder to absorb incremental issuance, thereby avoiding a demand-supply mismatch. Of course, the story is not that simple. Cash-rich companies may not have a compelling need to access credit markets if the equity market continues to reward redirection of these free cash flows. But then the path of the interest rate markets will also matter, as monetary policy eases, the cost of debt becomes incrementally even more attractive. It’s clearly early innings, but credit markets holistically should play a bigger role as the cycle matures. In addition, as the capex cycle broadens out from enablers to adopters, we note that most sectors are nearly not as cash-rich as the technology sectors. For example, the median cash to debt ratio for the technology sector is over 50 percent, but then for the remaining sectors, it is just 15 percent. So as capital needs driven by these infrastructure needs increase, we expect the reliance on credit markets also to increase. In some ways, this has already begun to happen. The first data center asset backed security was issued in 2018. The market has now grown to over 20 billion outstanding and it is poised for a rapid growth. The bottom line is simply this: As AI driven technology diffusion takes center stage, credit markets, broadly defined, will likely play a growing role. As always, there will be winners and there will be losers. But AI as a theme for credit investors is here to stay. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Global Chief Economist explains why markets are concerned about uncertainty around the French and US elections, and how their outcomes may affect each economy’s debt load.---- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about elections, and what they might mean for fiscal sustainability.It's Wednesday, June 26th at 10am in New York.Elections have unexpectedly become a key risk in an otherwise positive growth narrative for France this year. And there are a wide range of possible outcomes for the next government.Fiscal sustainability is one key market narrative we have been flagging. And in France, the fiscal position is expected to deteriorate. Our strategists note that the 10-year OAT boon spreads have widened more than 20 basis points. And in their view, further discounts on OATs are likely due to the deficit trajectories in the different political scenarios and heightened political and economic uncertainty.In recent work we've done on developed market government sustainability, we flagged that across DMs, even if fiscal deficits remain steady, interest expense on the debt will continue to rise, pushing up the debt to GDP ratios. Larger deficits would necessarily exacerbate the situation. Austerity is necessary to stabilize or lower the debt to GDP ratios.For France in particular, the maturity profile and forward rates had meant there could be relatively more time for the repricing to happen; but the market reaction to the election has meant higher yields, effectively pulling forward that repricing. Relative to our analysis in the first quarter of 2024, the debt surfacing costs are already higher.The election results have now led to expectations of higher deficits, implying faster rising debt to GDP ratios as well. This combination of higher rates and higher deficits is self-reinforcing. The market will pay close attention to specific policy proposals -- and the coalitions that result from the election.For the US elections, debt sustainability has so far been lower on the list of topics that clients bring up. The elections are expected to be close. In a recent joint note with our US public policy colleagues, we noted four basic scenarios: a Republican sweep; a Democratic sweep; or divided governments with either a Republican or a Democratic president.Our public policy colleagues see very different outcomes across a 10-year time horizon for the deficit, ranging from an increase of [$]1.6 trillion under the Republican sweep scenario to an increase of about $600 billion in the Democratic sweep scenario, and the split government scenario is somewhere in between.Of course, fiscal policy is not the only consideration for debt sustainability. Tariffs could generate some higher revenues, but the adverse hit to GDP means that the denominator of the debt to GDP ratio will fall and push the ratio higher.Our policy colleagues have also flagged a big range of possible immigration policy outcomes. The current positive supply shock to the labor force has allowed for faster GDP growth and consequently, higher revenues. Under the strictest immigration policies, the so-called break-even monthly payrolls flow could fall from a baseline now of just over 200,000 per month to as low as 45,000 per month.Such an outcome would imply lower revenues and lower GDP, meaning both the numerator and the denominator of the debt to GDP ratio would be pushing upward.Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist explains how to make sense of the equity market’s narrow performance, and why stock picking takes on greater importance for investors.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the narrowness in breadth and why that supports our preference for high quality and defensive stocks.It's Tuesday, June 25th at 11:30am in New York.So let’s get after it. I am fond of the saying that the economy is not the stock market, and the stock market is not the economy. Often, a strong economy is not good for stocks, while a soft one can lead to higher equity prices. This latter case is the classic late cycle period in which we find ourselves. More specifically, when the economy is slowing from previous tightening by the Federal Reserve, the equity market starts to get excited about the Fed reversing course, and it looks forward to loosening policy and valuations rise in anticipation. With price/earnings multiples and other valuation metrics now in the top decile, the question is when will valuations matter and begin to fall faster than earnings growth and lead to a meaningful correction?At the stock level, this is already happening as illustrated by the weakest breadth since 1965. In other words, most stocks are seeing valuations fall more than earnings are rising. This is exactly why stock picking has become so important for equity investors to outperform the S&P 500. While this creates a great long and short opportunity, the list of longs has become harder to find and why the momentum in a few stocks continues unabated. This also syncs with our view for the past year that large cap quality is likely to continue to outperform until something material changes in the macro environment. I see three potential candidates to change this seemingly very stable and benign outcome for equity markets.First, inflation and growth reaccelerate in a way that forces the Fed to reconsider rate hikes. Right now, that does not appear likely and why there is virtually no risk of such an outcome priced into either bond or stock markets. Such an outcome would likely lead to a broadening out of the equity rally to areas that have lagged persistently over the past 2 years—areas like small caps, lower quality consumer cyclicals, regional banks and transports. The S&P 500 would likely trade poorly under this scenario as higher rates would potentially weigh on valuations for the big winners. Second, the liquidity picture deteriorates and money flows out of equities. A key risk in this regard relates to the funding of the extraordinary government deficit. A good way to monitor this risk is the term premium in the bond market which remains near zero. Should this change and the term premium rise like last fall, the decline in equities would likely be broad with few stocks doing well. This does not appear to be a concern at the moment given the liquidity provisions still in place.The third possible risk is a growth scare that is substantial enough to turn bad economic data into bad news for equity multiples across the board. This is the most likely risk to upset the apple cart in our view. Under this outcome, large cap quality should continue to do ok on a relative basis, but defensives are likely to do better. The economic growth surprises have been trending lower all year. So far, the S&P 500 has taken these weaker data in stride assuming bad economic data is still good for large cap quality stocks as the market looks forward to rate cuts from the Fed. Meanwhile, weaker indices and stocks have broken down with many now down on the year. The bottom line is that the ongoing policy mix of heavy fiscal spending and tight interest rate policy is crowding out many companies and consumers in a waythat is unsustainable in our view. Investors have correctly recognized this outcome by bidding up the few stocks of the companies that are doing well in this environment. Until the bond market pushes back via higher term premium or growth slows down in a more meaningful way, we expect this narrow market performance to persist. As such, we continue to recommend a barbell of large cap quality growth with defensives while fading cyclicals and avoiding the temptation to play for a true broadening out until the macro regime makes a meaningful shift.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

Halfway through a historic year for elections around the world, Morgan Stanley’s chief economists assess the impact of recent results on the global economy, and weigh potential effects from key elections to come.----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market, and welcome back to the second part of a special two-part episode of the podcast. We've been covering Morgan Stanley's global economic outlook as we look into the third quarter of 2024. In the first part, we covered the twin themes of inflation in central banks. In this part, we're going to look at elections, with my colleagues Ellen Zentner, our Chief US Economist, Jens Eisenschmidt, our Chief Europe Economist, and Chetan Ahya, who is our Chief Asia Economist.It's Monday, June 24th at 10 am in New York.It is astounding if we look around the world just how many elections there have already been this year and how many more there are going to be. We will get to the US, but before we do, Chetan, in Asia, India is one of the most important economies; and in India they recently had elections. Can you just let our listeners know basically what happened and what do you think are the implications for that election for the Indian economy?Chetan Ahya: Yeah Seth. So Definitely there was a big change in India in terms of the political outcome. So the ruling party did not get the full majority and they have had to form a government under a coalition structure. There is a question though, as a result of that, whether the policy shift will happen in India and the government will go back to redistribution instead of focusing on boosting investment and jobs. Well, we think that, you know, there is no change. There is policy continuity. We think that this government is very much aligned in thinking that they want to keep inflation in check and current account deficit in check, i.e. macro stability should be in control. And they still believe that job creation is the way to ensure that the general masses and the bottom 20 per cent see the benefit and then vote for them back again.So, for us, we are not changing our view that this is India's decade. We are still maintaining our growth forecast that India will be achieving 6.5 per cent until 2030, and at the same time as India continues to build this growth rates on a high base, India will be at $8 trillion by 2032. Back to you, Seth.Seth Carpenter: Thanks, Chetan. super interesting. And EM elections have had a lot of surprises. We had South Africa. We had a surprise -- in terms of the margin in the opposite direction of what you said for India -- when it comes to the case of Mexico, where Scheinbaum won, but the majority was even bigger than I think most people were expected.But there are other elections that had some big surprises. Jens, let me come to you. In Europe, we had the European elections, and there were some big surprises there, to say the very least. First, can you just walk us through, what do the European level elections mean, in terms of our outlook? And then, part of the fallout from those surprises was that President Macron in France called for snap elections. What do you think we need to take away from that fact?Jens Eisenschmidt: We have had a look at the manifestos, what is known so far from those that are competing for government in France, say, and I think one of our key takeaways is that might be more fiscal spending. And of course, short run this might get you more growth. But of course, the question is always, what's the price for us to pay? There might be higher interest rates and that in the longer term may be detrimental. So, I think overall we have to wait until we see really and observe the full election outcome.Now, more generally, we had the European elections and we get a lot of questions by clients -- what the implications are here. Now, if you, sort of just look again from very high up, far away, then we see that the coalition that has last time, voted and elected, Ursula von der Leyen, the currently sitting, President of the European Commission. That coalition still stands or commands a majority in the European Parliament post the elections. Just that that majority, of course, is a little bit smaller than before.It's very likely that von der Leyen will have to reach out to either the Greens that were not in the past part of her coalition, voting for her; or the bloc around the Italian Prime Minister Meloni. The implication of it is that we have to see which side the reach out is for – for the consequences for the commission priorities. But I would say from today's perspective, and again giving that there is some logic of averaging here, it's very unlikely to be dramatic changes that we are going to see at the European level.Seth Carpenter: Staying on, on your side of the Atlantic, of course the UK is going to have elections as well. And notably on July 4th, the anniversary of the US independence from Great Britain. I love that

Morgan Stanley’s chief economists examine the varied responses of global central banks to noisy inflation data in their quarterly roundtable discussion.----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's global chief economist. We have a special two-part episode of the podcast where we'll cover Morgan Stanley's global economic outlook as we look into the third quarter of 2024.It's Friday, June 21st at 10am in New York.Jens Eisenschmidt: And 4pm in Frankfurt.Chetan Ahya: And 10pm in Hong Kong.Seth Carpenter: Alright, so a lot's happened since our last economics roundtable on this podcast back in March and since we published our mid-year outlook in May. My travels have taken me to many corners of the globe, including Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Washington D. C., Chicago.Two themes have dominated every one of my meetings. Inflation in central banks on the one hand, and then on the other hand, elections.In the first part of this special episode, I wanted to discuss these key topics with the leaders of Morgan Stanley Economics in key regions. Ellen Zentner is our Chief US Economist, Jens Eisenschmidt is our Chief Europe Economist, and Chetan Ahya is our Chief Asia Economist.Ellen, I'm going to start with you. You've also been traveling. You were in London recently, for example. In your conversations with folks, what are you explaining to people? Where do things stand now for the Fed and inflation in the US?Ellen Zentner: Thanks, Seth. So, we told people that the inflation boost that we saw in the first quarter was really noise, not signal, and it would be temporary; and certainly, the past three months of data have supported that view. But the Fed got spooked by that re-acceleration in inflation, and it was quite volatile. And so, they did shift their dot plot from a median of three cuts to a median of just one cut this year. Now, we're not moved by the dot plot. And Chair Powell told everyone to take the projections with a grain of salt. And we still see three cuts starting in September.Jens Eisenschmidt: If you don't mind me jumping in here, on this side of the Atlantic, inflation has also been noisy and the key driver behind repricing in rate expectations. The ECB delivered its cut in June as expected, but it didn't commit to much more than that. And we had, in fact, anticipated that cautious outcome simply because we have seen surprises to the upside in the April, and in particular in the May numbers. And here, again, the upside surprise was all in services inflation.If you look at inflation and compare between the US experience and euro area experience, what stands out at that on both sides of the Atlantic, services inflation appears to be the sticky part. So, the upside surprises in May in particular probably have left the feeling in the governing council that the process -- by which they got more and more confidence in their ability to forecast inflation developments and hence put more weight on their forecast and on their medium-term projections – that confidence and that ability has suffered a slight setback. Which means there is more focus now for the next month on current inflation and how it basically compares to their forecast.So, by implication, we think upside surprises or continued upside surprises relative to the ECB's path, which coincides in the short term with our path, will be a problem; will mean that the September rate cut is put into question.For now, our baseline is a cut in September and another one in December. So, two more this year. And another four next year.Seth Carpenter: Okay, I get it. So, from my perspective, then, listening to you, Jens, listening to Ellen, we're in similar areas; the timing of it a little bit different with the upside surprise to inflation, but downward trend in inflation in both places. ECB already cutting once. Fed set to start cutting in September, so it feels similar.Chetan, the Bank of Japan is going in exactly the opposite direction. So, our view on the reflation in Japan, from my conversations with clients, is now becoming more or less consensus. Can you just walk us through where things stand? What do you expect coming out of Japan for the rest of this year?Chetan Ahya: Thanks, Seth. So, Japan's reflation story is very much on track. We think a generational shift from low-flation to new equilibrium of sustainable moderate inflation is taking hold. And we see two key factors sustaining this story going forward. First is, we expect Japan's policymakers to continue to keep macro policies accommodative. And second, we think a virtuous cycle of higher prices and wages is underway.The strong spring wage negotiation results this year will mean wage growth will rise to 3 percent by third quarter and crucially the pass through of wages to prices is now much stronger than in the past -- and will keep inflation sustainably higher at 1.5 to 2 per cent. This is why we e

Our head of corporate credit research dives into the question of correlation and market volatility, and explains why stock indices can remain stable despite a certain level of turmoil, as we have seen recently in Europe.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about correlations, and why they are currently so important to markets being calmer than they would otherwise be. It’s Thursday, June 20th at 2pm in London.Imagine you’re on a boat, maybe looking for sea life. People are milling around the deck, watching the vessel ripple through the waves. Suddenly someone spotsa whale, and everybody runs to port. The whale swims under the boat, and everybody now runs to starboard. The boat rocks significantly. But imagine the same scenario where marine life is popping up on both sides of the vessel. You and your fellow passengers are all now running past each other in both directions. The movements balance out. The boat is pretty stable. Believe it or not, this is how the volatility in the stock indices work. The individual passengers can be thought of as individual stocks, and how much they’re each moving around can be thought of as each stock’s volatility. The boat is the overall index – say, the S&P 500, the EuroStoxx 50, or an index of corporate bonds. When everybody on the boat moves together, what we’d call a high correlation environment, you’d get a lot of rocking, or volatility, at the index level. But when people are moving in opposite directions, moving past each other; you can still have a lot of running, or individual vol – but the market, or the boat, will appear much more calm. That is exactly what’s been happening, especially last week. Stocks within the S&P 500 are moving with unusual independence from each other, running to opposite sides of the boat, with the lowest such correlation in almost 20 years. That is a big reason why, despite all the volatile headlines out of Europe, and more stocks falling than rising in the US, the overall market has been surprisingly calm – and going up. Even in Europe, this phenomenon of low correlation has really helped. That volatility I mentioned relates to upcoming elections in France, which led the difference between French and German bond yields to jump to their highest level in more than a decade. But because this spread of France to Germany moved in the opposite direction as overall French yields, the overall result for French government bonds was not much. Last week, despite all the apparent ruckus, the yield on French government bonds was basically unchanged. Markets have been calmer than you would usually expect them to be. These correlations are a big reason why. We think they suggest a still healthy dynamic where markets are differentiating between different types of risks. To go back to our original analogy, there is still plenty of sea life out there for the market to look at. But these correlations are also worth watching, were they to rise significantly. If one thing were to dominate the focus and lead everybody to run to the same side of the boat, overall market volatility could rise surprisingly fast. It's something, you could say, that we're on the lookout for. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review, wherever you listen, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Investors watching for market reactions would do well to stick to their existing plans in an environment where the economic impacts of any particular US election outcome remains unclear. Our Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research explains.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the US elections and its impacts on markets.It's Tuesday, June 18th at 10:30am in New York. We first started covering the 2024 US election in December of last year. With about five months to go until the event, it’s a good time to take stock of what we’ve learned that might be useful for investors. In short, there’s a lot of noise around this election, and recognizing that noise is a first step toward not making mistakes around the event. First, don’t make the mistake of confidently predicting an outcome. All indicators suggest it’s very unlikely that we’ll have a good sense about which candidate will win the election in the run up to the Election Day, and perhaps even in the days that follow. Neither candidate has a lead beyond a polling margin of error in sufficient states to suggest that if the election were held today that they would win the electoral college.Prediction markets and polling models also point to a race that’s a toss-up. It all suggests a tight race going into Election Day. And with the sustained popularity of voting by mail, vote counts could move slowly, as they did in 2020; meaning we may have to dig in for another election week.Second, don’t make the mistake of making big strategic changes in your portfolio just because it’s an election year. We recently studied this and there’s little pattern for how markets behave in the run up to an election, even when filtering for factors like similar outcomes and closeness of the race. Markets in the aggregate don’t seem to consistently price in US election outcomes ahead of time. There’s more evidence that they price in expected policy impacts once the outcome is known, which brings me to my third point.Don’t make the mistake of overconfidence when it comes to how post-election policies will impact the economy. Sure, if we knew one outcome was bad for growth and the other good, it might be advisable to buy risk assets on the news of the latter outcome occurring. But especially in this election it’s not that simple.For example, in scenarios where Republicans win the White House, you can expect greater tariffs, immigration curbs, and – if they also control congress – bigger deficits driven by tax cuts relative to alternative outcomes. According to our economists, these policies have different effects on growth, inflation and monetary policy depending on how they are constructed and timed; and so it defies simple conclusions of growth positive or growth negative, at least at this point.So bottom line, don’t mistake noise for signal when it comes to the election. Stick to the plan, such as the cross-asset framework recently put forward in our mid-year outlook. And maybe focus on some equity sectors, such as industrials and defense, which are well placed currently but have upside in certain election scenarios.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

The AI revolution has helped fuel the tech IPO sector’s resurgence following a two-year lull. Our Co-Heads of Technology Equity Capital Markets join our Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research to discuss the sustainability of this trend. ----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research for Morgan Stanley.Diana Doyle: I am Diana Doyle, Managing Director and Co-Head of Technology Equity Capital Markets in the Americas.Lauren Garcia Belmonte: And I'm Lauren Garcia Belmonte, Managing Director, Co-Head of Technology Equity Capital Markets Americas.Michael Zezas: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll dive into what's ahead for the tech IPO market this year.It's Monday, June 17th, at 11 am in New York.Diana Doyle: And 8 am in San Francisco.Michael Zezas: Since 2023 only nine technology companies completed an initial public offering, which is one of the longest periods of reduced IPO activity in history. For context, compare that with the all-time record of 124 technology IPOs in 2021. But with the first quarter of 2024 behind us, we're starting to see that picture improve. With tech and AI in focus right now, on today's episode, I want to speak with Diana and Lauren from our global capital markets team to get their take on where the tech IPO environment might be headed and what investors may want to watch for.Lauren, maybe to start -- what's contributing to this resurgence in IPO activity this year?Lauren Garcia Belmonte: Well, the market backdrop has been constructive. We've had the SMP and NASDAQ trading up 10 -- 11 per cent this year and multiples have been stable for technology businesses. And against this backdrop, we've seen some IPO issuers recognize that this is a good environment in which to move forward with their IPO event. There are several benefits to becoming a public company, not just the opportunity to raise capital -- but to give liquidity to employees and to early investors in the business, and to set the company up to be a real industry leader as a public company.So, issuers are seeing the opportunity; and meanwhile, the demand side from investors has been encouraging as well. Investors in the public equities recognize that there's limited opportunity, in some instances, to underwrite growth. Right now, 55 per cent of publicly traded technology businesses are growing top line 10 per cent or less. So, the IPO opportunity, where companies generally have an attractive growth profile, is a way for these investors to get access to an opportunity to underwrite exciting growth profiles -- even when that opportunity isn't so prevalent in the public markets right now.Michael Zezas: And Diana, do you see the rebound in IPO activity as a durable trend? Maybe take us into 2025.Diana Doyle: Well, 2024 is definitely going to be better than 2022 and 2023. Now, it'll be a long time before we get back to that 124 tech IPOs in 2021 that you mentioned, Michael. But in an average year, we have about 35 to 40 IPOs, and we expect 2025 to approach more of an average. So, as Lauren said, we're encouraged by the breadth of investor demand for IPOs that we've done this year, and investors’ appetite to take risk. And all that lays the foundation for a healthy IPO market in 12 to 18 months.But it will be a slow build because IPOs are not a quick turnaround financing. It takes about six months on average to get through an IPO process. So, if you're not already underway, you're likely looking at 2025. In the meantime, we're seeing many late-stage private companies. They have plenty of cash. They're doing secondary raises to provide liquidity to employees and early investors, and they're waiting for growth rates to be more predictable -- for profitability to improve and to get more scale.So, we're excited for 2025, and the IPO market is wide open for companies that have growth and scale, profitability and that offer investors something different than what's available in the public market today.Michael Zezas: Got it. And what about macro conditions, Lauren? So perhaps the Fed's pivoting to cutting rates, the overall economic backdrop, geopolitical considerations. How do those things impact the tech IPO market?Lauren Garcia Belmonte: Yeah, absolutely. The tech IPO market is influenced by these macro considerations -- and it's in a few different ways.First, of course, and importantly, the valuation impact is real for technology businesses that have a lot of their growth on the come and a higher rate environment. Of course, that future growth needs to be discounted more significantly. The second key impact is around just how these management teams are able to manage, predict, and model out their business.In a more uncertain environment, it can be more challenging to articulate and defend the forward model that is a part of all IPO processes where you're exp

Our Head of India Research and Chief India Equity Strategist lays out his bullish post-election view on India, explaining why the market is likely to drive a fifth of global growth in the coming decade.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley’s Head of India Research and Chief India Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss our take on India’s election results and why we still believe this is India’s decade.  It’s Friday, June 14th, at 2pm in Mumbai.India’s general election results are in, and the world is paying close attention. The most important aspect of the BJP led NDA retaining its majority is policy predictability – something equities tend to thrive on. We believe the market can look forward to further structural reforms. This gives us more confidence in our forecast of a 20 per cent annual earnings growth over the next five years. Macro stability with rising GDP growth relative to real rates should extend India's outperformance over Emerging Market equities. We’ve been bullish on India since April 2020, and we still believe that India is likely to drive a fifth of global growth in the coming decade. This will be underpinned by increased offshoring of both services and manufacturing, as well as the energy transition and the country's advanced digital infrastructure. India's stock market has been making new highs. The big investor debate now is what could take the India market even higher from here. We believe share prices have yet to bake in a number of positives, such as India's newfound macro stability, a likely fall in its primary deficit moving into a primary balance, and a fast-evolving deep tech sector, to name just a few.We expect critical reforms to be made in Modi’s third term. Here are three more important ones. Number one, further consolidation of India’s fiscal deficit. From a market perspective this lends itself to sustained credit growth, which we think is going to be good for India’s private banks. Number two, a continuing buildout of both physical and social infrastructure. The physical infrastructure will likely focus on railways. Social infrastructure may include more low-income housing as well as water and electricity security. These reforms make us bullish on industrial stocks. Number three, further growth in India’s manufacturing prowess. The government will likely focus on improving competitiveness via fiscal incentives and by building infrastructure within such industries as defense, electronics, aerospace, food processing and renewables. We expect India’s energy consumption to rise by around 50 per cent over the next five years with increasing contribution from renewables. From an equities perspective, we think consumer stocks are well-positioned as nearly 100 million families could move into the middle-income bracket in the next decade. At the top end of the income pyramid, India’s affluent households could quintuple to 25 million over the coming decade, which should support a surge in luxury consumption. Of course, there are plenty of risks, even with the elections behind us – from various capacity constraints to geopolitics, the impact of AI and climate change. But even with all these in mind, we still believe this is set to be India's longest and strongest bull market ever. Stay invested. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

A strong economy and global stock market surge may suggest market euphoria. However, our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why the corporate sector caution is, in fact, a good sign.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the surprising lack of confidence in corporate boardrooms, and why it could extend the cycle. It's Thursday, June 13th at 2pm in London. “Buy low, sell high.” That age-old advice is rooted in the idea that investors should try to buy when others are fearful and sell when others are euphoric. The high in prices, after all, should occur when people are as positive, and things are as good as they can possibly be. At the moment, there is plenty of focus on this idea that the market pendulum may have swung too far towards excessive positivity. The economy is strong, with US growth tracking above 2 per cent, inflation moderating and the unemployment rate still near a 60 year low. US and global stock markets are near all-time highs. And many quantitative measures of investor optimism are elevated, whether it's the low levels of expected volatility, polls of investor outlooks or ownership of equity futures. But we think there is one missing piece of this story, with relevance for credit and beyond. While investors are optimistic, corporate boardrooms remain much more restrained. And that caution could help extend the cycle. One way to measure corporate optimism is whether or not companies are adding debt; a company is more likely to borrow when it feels better about the future. Well, as of the first quarter of 2024, the growth in US non-financial corporate borrowing was at a 10-year low. And among lower rated borrowers, the issuance of high yield bonds and loans remains dominated by borrowing to repay or refinance existing debt – the most conservative type of issuance that you can get. Another way to measure corporate optimism is Mergers & Acquisitions, or M&A, as it really takes confidence in the future to acquire another company. Well, global M&A volumes in 2023 were the lowest, adjusted for the size of the economy in over 30 years. While this has picked up a bit, and we do think M&A recovers significantly over the next two years, it’s currently still very low. On the surface, there are plenty of signs that investors are entering the summer optimistic. But the corporate sector remains surprisingly restrained, especially given that solid economic data, record profits and record highs in the stock market. We’d further note that the Tech sector, where there is more optimism and much more investment spending, generally isn’t borrowing to fund this, and also enjoys unusually strong balance sheets. All of this matters because it’s been high levels of corporate optimism that have often been very bad for credit, as it’s excessive optimism that often leads to excessive risk taking, hubris, and an eventual payback that is bad for lenders. The lack of optimism, at the moment, is a good sign, and one of several reasons why we think spreads can remain tight, and the credit cycle has further to run. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our US Thematic Strategist explains the premium that consumers will pay for convenience, and what that means for sectors including online retail, dining and package delivery.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Michelle Weaver, Morgan Stanley’s US Thematic Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll talk about convenience and why it’s such an important factor for a number of industries.  It’s Wednesday, June 12, at 11am in New York. The consumer has been weakening around the edges, and this is flowing through to companies' bottom line. Our Consumer Economist thinks that consumption is likely to continue to slow this year and even into 2025 as the labor market cools and that weighs on real disposable income, elevated rates continue to pressure debt service costs, and tighter lending standards limit credit availability.   And given this setup, companies have been focusing on their value offerings, and we saw a lot of commentary around this during first quarter earnings calls. Mentions of just the word value itself were elevated. But value isn't the whole story, and consumers aren’t always just choosing the cheapest option.  You and I are consumers. We are all consumers. Think about the last time you bought something. Did you pick one retailer over another because buying the item was easier? Did the company have a better website or a better mobile app? Did they offer faster shipping options or free shipping? Would the product itself save you time? And how much more were you willing to pay to make the more convenient choice?  Convenience is a valuable product and a key factor in consumer choice. In fact, our survey shows that 77 percent of US consumers rate it as important and base purchasing decisions on it. Our work suggests three key conclusions. On average, consumers would be willing to pay about a 5 percent price premium for convenience. And there are two groups that place a particular emphasis on it - those who are younger and those who are more affluent. Second, consumers are willing to choose one company's product or service over another's because of convenience. Staples products and food away from home are the industries where consumers are especially likely to pick one option over another. And third, shipping features like free shipping or fast shipping are the most important convenience-related criteria when shopping online. Several industries stand to benefit from providing convenience. And convenience has been a long-term, persistent driver of eCommerce. Consumers love the combination of an ever-expanding assortment of goods and services and shrinking delivery times – and this is convenience really at its best. Convenience is easier to deliver for categories with standardized, durable products with lower purchase frequency that are easier to deliver like electronics or travel. But even within an already winning industry there is still a lot of opportunity, especially within the least penetrated categories, grocery and household and personal care. In Restaurants, fast casual is likely to continue to take share given the combination of quality and convenience. Restaurants that have led digital access -- like mobile and online orders as well as online reservations – have posted impressive growth over time. Some fast-food chains have also invested in a digital approach and will likely to continue to build on this in the future. Now unlike internet and restaurants, the parcels industry is facing a large threat from convenience, specifically fast and free shipping and easy returns. Their networks were not built to handle the quick delivery required of ecommerce volumes today, and the business-to-consumer shipping that is offered by the largest online vendors. We think convenience is an important factor for companies and one they can use to differentiate themselves in customers minds. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Global Chief Economist takes stock of recent elections in India, Mexico and South Africa -- and what they suggest about the market implications of the upcoming UK and US elections.----- Transcript -----Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about recent elections and upcoming elections and what they mean for the economy.It's Tuesday, June 11th at 10am in New York.Markets usually prefer simple narratives, but this week it's shown us that simplicity can be elusive. In particular, for elections, legislative outcomes can be more complicated but are consequential. Here in the US, clients often ask about the economic implications of a Trump vs. Biden presidency -- but we immediately have to flag that the congressional outcome has to be a big part of the conversation.Indeed, three important elections in the past weeks have emphasized the importance of a legislative focus. But the surprise was not in who won -- rather, in how big the legislative decisions were. In India, Prime Minister Modi was re-elected, but his BJP party lost its outright majority. Exit polls on June 1st had predicted a resounding victory for the BJP, prompting a rally in the lead up to the final results.The results surprised markets and caused a reversal. Markets have since recovered to roughly where they were before the exit polls,We expect policy predictability with the continued focus on macro stability. This focus implies moderate inflation, smaller primary deficits, along with support for domestic manufacturing and infrastructure in upcoming years. Those have been the core of our view that the Indian economy is set for continued expansion.The Mexican election was almost the reverse, where the winning candidate's party won far more votes than was expected. In response to the news, equity markets sold off and the Mexican peso depreciated. Scheinbaum was largely expected to win after the endorsement of Obrador; but by winning a supermajority, the market focus turned to Mexican fiscal discipline based on a view that there may be less restraint on government spending.Fiscal policy has been in focus for us because for the first time in recent years the government there ran a fiscal deficit. While the party has sought to reassure markets, concern has mounted regarding the risks of fiscal slippage without a more balanced legislature.Compared to India and Mexico, The South African market reaction to the election was modest, though not for a lack of surprise in the legislature. The ANC lost more of its majority than polls had predicted, which narrows the options for a coalition. The market now expects a more reform-oriented coalition to take power and support a continued improvement in the economy. For example, frequent power outages had impeded the economy for a long time, but the energy sector now appears to be more stable, and those sorts of reforms can help catalyze an improved economic outlook.Examples of India, Mexico, and South Africa have reinforced why we've remained focused on the upcoming general elections in the UK, and also the congressional outcomes in the US. In the UK, a change in government is predicted by the polls, and fiscal considerations will be in focus.So back here in the US, the fiscal outcome will largely be determined by the congressional results. To meaningfully change federal tax or spending requires legislation. And our colleagues in public policy research have flagged that under a Republican sweep, they expect lower taxes and higher spending; contrasted with a Democratic sweep that might bring somewhat higher spending, but also higher taxes leading to a narrower deficit.A split government, where the party in the White House not the same as the party controlling each of the Houses of Congress, however, probably implies more muted outcomes. While we should focus on the legislative outcomes, there are important authorities, of course, that the President can exercise independently of the Congress.So, when we highlight the importance of the legislative outcomes, we are not denying the criticality of the presidency.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague.

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist explains why economic fluctuations have made it more difficult to project a possible soft or no landing outcome, and how investors can navigate this continuing market volatility.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the continued uncertainty in economic data and its impact on markets.  It's Monday, June 10th at 11:30am in New York.  So let’s get after it.  Over the past few months, the economic growth data has surprised to the downside with more data releases coming in below expectations than usual. Meanwhile, inflation surprises have skewed more to the upside. This is a challenging combination because it means the Fed can't cut rates yet even though it may make sense to keep the economic expansion going.  As we have been discussing for months, aggressive fiscal spending is keeping the headline economy looking good on the surface. The bad news is that inflation remains too high for the Fed which has to keep interest rate policy too tight for many economic participants. Some may disagree with that statement, but we think it's hard to argue with the yield curve which remains significantly inverted and a valid indicator of interest rate policy. When combined with high price levels for many goods and services, the end result is a crowding out of many parts of the economy and consumers. From our perspective, this is most evident in the persistent underperformance of small cap stocks. In fact, this past week, small cap equities relative performance fell to new cycle lows. Even more concerning is that while small caps are showing greater interest rate sensitivity than large caps, it’s also asymmetric. While higher rates are an obvious headwind for small caps, we're skeptical that lower rates offer a comparable benefit. Last week was a good example of this dynamic when small caps underperformed early in the week when rates rose and later in the week when rates fell.   All of this argues for what we have been recommending — in an uncertain macro world, we think investors should stay up the quality curve with a barbell of both growth and cyclicals to participate in both the soft and no landing outcomes. We also think it makes sense to have some defensive exposure as a hedge against the above average risk of a recession that still looms. Given the more negative skew in the economic surprise data as noted, we think the defensive part of the portfolio should outweigh cyclicals at this point. We favor staples and utilities specifically in this regard.  With markets sensitive to unpredictable inflation and labor data, it's very difficult to have an edge going into these releases, particularly on the labor front where the data itself has been subject to significant and ongoing revisions. While many market participants focus on the non-farm payroll data, these data have been subject to some of the larger revisions we’ve seen in recent history. Meanwhile, the household survey has been weaker than the non-farm payroll data and job openings have fallen persistently over the last 18 months. These diverging labor dynamics are classic late cycle phenomena based on our experience. For investors, it's just another reason to stay up the quality curve and to avoid positioning for a broadening out to lower quality areas. In our view, such a broadening is unlikely in any kind of sustainable way until the Fed cuts meaningfully — and by that we mean several hundred basis points rather than the one-to-two cuts that are now priced into the markets for this year. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today. 

Our Global Head of Emerging Markets Sovereign Credit reviews key insights and strategies for investors following the recent elections in Mexico, South Africa and India.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Simon Waever, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of EM Sovereign Credit and Latin America Fixed Income Strategy. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss the far-reaching impact of emerging market elections on global markets. It’s Friday, June 7, at 10am in New York.Elections in 2024 will impact roughly 4 billion people around the globe – that’s the most in history. And within emerging markets, elections this year will impact nearly half the market cap of both hard and local currency debt indices and 60 percent of equities. With a dozen elections in the emerging markets sovereign credit universe already behind us, there are still almost another twenty more to go.We find that elections in emerging markets matter for both credit spreads and fiscal balances. And a frequent investor question is how to trade positive and negative election outcomes. This can be defined in many ways, of course, but we focus on whether credit spreads widen – which is a negative – or tighten – which is a positive – in the week post-elections. And history suggests that buying into negative election surprises has been a profitable strategy. But on the other hand, positive elections, they’re priced in beforehand and should not be chased post-outcome.So why is that, exactly? Well, for positive elections, markets tend to rally nearly continuously into the elections; but after the initial week of tightening, spreads then revert and end up trading only slightly tight to the levels prior to the elections. And then for negative elections, there’s actually no real trend ahead of the elections, with spreads largely flat. But then, after the initial sell-off, credit spreads end up reversing the initial move wider, and three months out the spreads are tighter than immediately post-elections. So, with this in mind, let’s consider the three most recent election outcomes in Mexico, India, and South Africa. And actually, all three had an element of surprise.In Mexico, they elected their first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. That was expected – but the surprise was that she got a much larger majority than polls suggested, which means that it becomes easier to push through constitutional changes. So, I think it’s fair to say that uncertainty has increased, and markets are now in a wait-and-see mode looking for what policy she will prioritize.And from my side, I’m paying particularly close attention to the many reforms submitted by the executive to the Congress back in February, and then any signs of fiscal consolidation, which is needed.South Africa saw the ANC fall below 50 per cent for the first time, and they now need to form a coalition or at least agree on a confidence and supply model. Well, I would say that at this point, markets are already pricing a lot of that uncertainty.Finally, in India, the BJP led New Democratic Alliance is set to form a government for the third term, and we think the most important aspect of this is policy predictability. And in particular we see a number of critical structural reforms made in this third term; and then importantly for fixed income, we see a reduction in the primary budget deficit.We will continue to monitor closely the remaining emerging markets elections in this landmark election year, and we’ll come back with more investment updates.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our four-person panel explains Japan’s economic boom, from growing GDP to corporate sector vibrancy, and which upward trends will sustain.----- Transcript -----Chetan Ahya: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Asia Economist.Japan is undergoing a once in a generation transformation. A country once associated with its lost decades is now seeing multi-decade highs for nominal GDP growth and equity indices.On this special episode of the podcast, we will discuss why we are so optimistic on Japan's trajectory from here. I'm joined by our Chief Japan Economist Takeshi Yamaguchi, our Chief Asia and EM Strategist Jonathan Garner, and our Japan Equity Strategist Sho Nakazawa.This episode was recorded last Friday, May 31st at 9 am in Hong Kong.Jonathan Garner: And 9 am in Singapore. Takeshi Yamaguchi: And 10 am in Tokyo. Chetan Ahya: Japan's nominal GDP growth reached a 32 year high in 2023. Equity markets have reached multi decade highs, and ROE and productivity growth have been on an improving trend. Corporate sector vibrancy is returning, and animal spirits are reviving. A new, stronger equilibrium is one of robust nominal GDP growth and a sustainable moderate inflation.This new equilibrium of stronger normal GDP growth and low real interest rates will also be supportive of Japan's capex trends. With that backdrop, let me now turn to Yamaguchi san. Yamaguchi-san, what makes us confident that this virtuous cycle of rising wages and prices will continue to play out?Takeshi Yamaguchi: We think Japan's social norm of no price hike, no wage hike is changing, and a good feedback loop between wages and prices is emerging. Workers demand higher wages with higher inflation expectations and the corporate management accept their demand, as they also expect higher inflation. Japan's labor market remains structurally tight and aggregated corporate profits are now at a record high level. In addition to the pass-through from prices to wages, we are beginning to see the pass-through in the other direction from wages to prices, especially in service prices. The average wage hike in these spring wage negotiations was the highest in the last 33 years. So, we expect to see a gradual rise in service inflation going ahead with a rise in wages. Chetan Ahya: Could you elaborate a bit on the details of the capex outlook? Takeshi Yamaguchi: Yes. We expect Japan's private capex to exceed its previous 1991 peak this year. In the previous deflationary period, domestic nominal GDP remained in a flat range, and Japanese firms mainly invested abroad. That said, the trend of Japanese nominal GDP growth has shifted up, which will likely positively affect Japanese firms’ decision to increase domestic investment.Also, there are various other factors supporting domestic capex, such as real interest rates remaining low, the weak yen, the government's new industrial policy supporting onshoring and semiconductor investment, and the need for digitalization and labor-saving investment on the back of structural labor shortage driven by demographic shifts.Chetan Ahya: Thank you, Yamaguchi-san. And, you know, I can't let you go without answering this question, which is much of the focus of the markets right now. If yen depreciates to 160 again, how much upside risk to your rate path do you see?Takeshi Yamaguchi: Our FX team expects the yen to gradually appreciate to 146 by the end of 2024, and under the assumption, we expect one hike this year in July and another one in January next year. However, if sustained yen depreciation raises domestic underlying inflation trend, we think the BOJ will respond by raising the policy rate further to 0.75 per cent in 2025.Chetan Ahya: Thank you, Yamaguchi-san. Jonathan, let me come over to you now. You have led the debate on Japan's ROE improvement and have been bullish since 2018. How are we thinking about Japan equities from a broader Asia market allocation perspective now?Jonathan Garner: Back in 2018, we highlighted Japan equities as what we called the most underappreciated turnaround story in global equities. And at the heart of our thesis was the idea that monetary and fiscal policy dials were now set to exit deflation, driving an improved top-down environment for corporations from an asset utilization perspective.It's worth recalling that during the deflation era, Japan listed equities ROE averaged just 4.2 per cent for two decades, by far the lowest in global markets. That's now reached almost 10 per cent, and we're confident that by the end of next year we can be approaching 12 per cent, which would put Japan back in the middle of the pack in global equity markets.And we think further re-rating in line with the improved ROE is likely, over the medium term.Chetan Ahya: And how much upside do we see from here?Jonathan Garner: Well, in terms of the target price that we published in our

Original release date April 29, 2024: Our analysts find that despite the obvious differences between retail fashion and airlines, struggling brands in both industries can use a similar playbook for a turnaround.----- Transcript -----Ravi Shanker: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ravi Shanker, Morgan Stanley's North American Freight Transportation and Airlines Analyst.Alex Straton: And I'm Alex Straton, Morgan Stanley's North America Softlines, Retail and Brands Analyst.Ravi Shanker: On this episode of the podcast, we'll discuss some really surprising parallels between fashion, retail, and airlines.It's Monday, April 29th at 10am in New York.Now, you're probably wondering why we're talking about airlines and fashion retail in the same sentence. And that's because even though they may seem worlds apart, they actually have a lot in common. They're both highly cyclical industries driven by consumer spending, inventory pressure, and brand attrition over time.And so, we would argue that what applies to one industry actually has relevance to the other industry as well. So, Alex, you've been observing some remarkable turnaround stories in your space recently. Can you paint a picture of what some fashion retail businesses have done to engineer a successful turnaround? Maybe go over some of the fundamentals first?Alex Straton: What I'll lead with here is that in my North America apparel retail coverage, turnarounds are incredibly hard to come by, to the point where I'd argue I'm skeptical when any business tries to architect one. And part of that difficulty directly pertains to your question, Ravi -- the fundamental backdrop of the industry.So, what are we working with here? Apparel is a low single digit growing category here in North America, where the average retailer operates at a mid single digit plus margin level. This is super meager compared to other more profitable industries that Ravi and I don't necessarily have the joy of covering. But part of why my industry is characterized by such low operating performance is the fact that there are incredibly low barriers to entry in the space. And you can really see that in two dynamics.The first being how fragmented the competitive landscape is. That means that there are many players as opposed to consolidation across a select few. Just think of how many options you have out there as you shop for clothing and then how much that has changed over time. And then second, and somewhat due to that fragmentation, the category has historically been deflationary, meaning prices have actually fallen over time as retailers compete mostly on price to garner consumer attention and market share.So put differently, historically, retailers’ key tool for drawing in the consumer and driving sales has been based on being price competitive, often through promotions and discounting, which, along with other structural headwinds, like declining mall traffic, e-commerce growth and then rising wages, rent and product input costs has actually meant the average retailers’ margin was in a steady and unfortunately structural decline prior to the pandemic.So, this reliance on promotions and discounting in tandem with those other pressures I just mentioned, not only hurt many retailers’ earnings power but in many cases also degraded consumer brand perception, creating a super tough cycle to break out of and thus turnarounds very tough to come by -- bringing it full circle.So, in a nutshell, what you should hear is apparel is a low barrier to entry, fragmented market with subsequently thin margins and little to no precedent for successful turnarounds. That's not to say a retail turnaround isn't possible, though, Ravi.Ravi Shanker: Got it. So that's great background. And you've identified some very specific key levers that these fashion retail companies can pull in order to boost their profitability. What are some of these levers?Alex Straton: We do have a recent example in the space of a company that was able to break free of that rather vicious cycle I just went through, and it actually lifted its sales growth and profitability levels above industry average. From our standpoint, this super rare retail turnaround relied on five key levers, and the first was targeting a different customer demographic. Think going from a teens focused customer with limited brand loyalty to an older, wealthier and less fickle shopper; more reliable, but differently.Second, you know, evolving the product assortment. So, think mixing the assortment into higher priced, less seasonal items that come with better margins. To bring this to life, imagine a jeans and tees business widening its offering to include things like tailored pants and dresses that are often higher margin.Third, we saw that changing the pricing strategy was also key. You can retrain or reposition a brand as not only higher priced through the two levers I just mentioned, but also try and be less promotional

Our Chief Fixed Income Strategist takes listeners behind the curtain on Morgan Stanley’s expectations for markets over the next 12 months.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupathur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the key debates we engaged in during the mid-year outlook process.It's Tuesday, June 4th at 1pm in New York.Over the last few episodes, you've been hearing a lot about Morgan Stanley's midyear outlook, where our economists have forecasted a sunny macro environment of decelerating growth and inflation, and policy easing in most developed market economies, leading to a positive backdrop for risk assets in the base case, especially in the second half of the year.But beyond the year end, many uncertainties -- uncertainties of outcomes and uncertainties of the consequences of those outcomes -- point to a wider range of outcomes, driving a wider than normal bull versus bear skew in our expectations for markets over the next 12 months.As always, these outlooks are the culmination of a process involving much deliberation and spirited debate among economists and strategists across all the regions and asset classes we cover. I thought it might be useful to detail some of these debates that we've had during the process to shed a better light on the forecast in our outlook.First, given the many changes to market pricing of Fed's rate cuts year to date, driven by higher-than-expected inflation, the path ahead for US inflation was heavily debated. Our economists argued that the acceleration in goods and financial services prices, which explains a substantial portion of the upside in the first quarter inflation data should decelerate from here. And also that leading indicators point to a weaker shelter inflation ahead. Their analysis also showed that residual seasonality contributed to the unexpected strength in first quarter [20]24 inflation data, suggesting a payback has to happen in the second half of 2024.The outlook for China economy and our cautious stance on the market was another point of debate, mainly because China's growth has surprised to the upside relative to our 2024 year ahead outlook. Our economists argued that while there are a few policy positives on housing and green products mitigating the debt deflation spiral, growth remains unbalanced and subpar. So, we discussed our cautious stance on China equity markets against this backdrop and concluded that the equity market recovery is still very challenging in China.Third, given the combination of favorable technicals, solid fundamentals, and a relatively benign economic outlook, we debated whether corporate credit, on which we are constructive, should we be even more constructive in our forecasts. After all, the setup for corporate credit has many elements similar to those during the mid 1990s, when, for example, US IG index spreads were about 30 basis points tighter versus the current spread targets. Our strategist highlighted the significant differences in the market structure, the composition of the index, and the duration of the underlying bonds that make up this index today, versus 1990s -- all of which put a higher floor on spreads, which explains our spread targets.The debates notwithstanding, we cannot argue with the benign macro backdrop and what that means for the second half of 2024. We turn overweight in global equities and overweight in a range of spread products within fixed income, most notably agency MBS, EM Sovereign credit, leveraged loans, securitized credit, especially CLO equity tranches.Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Chief Cross-Asset Strategist explains why the high correlation between stocks and bonds could work in investors’ favor throughout the second half of this year.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss why we believe bonds and equities can both rally this year, with the still-elevated correlations between the two assets a boon rather than a bane to investors. It’s Monday, June 3rd at 10am in New York. In our mid-year outlook two weeks ago, we expressed our bullish view on both global equities and parts of fixed income space like agency mortgage-backed securities and leveraged loans, on the back of the benign economic backdrop our economists are forecasting for in the second half of 2024. Now, this may be surprising to some. Received wisdom is that in an environment of rate cuts and falling yields, equities can't perform well because the former usually maps to growth slowdowns. When equities see double-digit upside – which is what we’re projecting for European equities – it’s unusual for bonds to also see strong and positive returns, which is what we’re projecting for German government bonds. And I want to push back on this received wisdom that we can’t have an ‘everything rally’. When we look at the annual performance of global stocks and 10-year US Treasuries every year going back to 1988, in the 13 times when the Fed cut rates over the course of the year, bond yields were lower and equities were up 43 per cent of the time. And in those periods, stock returns averaged 18 per cent while yields fell over 1 percentage points. ‘Everything rallies’ happen often in this very macro backdrop of benign growth and Fed cuts we’re expecting, And when they do happen, everything indeed rallies – strongly. Or to frame it another way – our expectations for both global equities and fixed income to see strong total returns this year is the flipside of what markets had experienced in 2022. Now back then, unlike in most other prior cycles, stock-bond return correlations were high because inflation was elevated even as growth was sluggish, meaning that bonds sold off on higher rates expectations, and equities on bad earnings. Today, with our view that global growth can be robust while disinflation continues, the opposite will likely be true; bonds should rally on lower rates expectations, and equities on strong earnings revisions. Stock-bond return correlations are still elevated, but it should work in an investor’s favor this year. Lean into it. Good macro, fair fundamentals, pockets of attractive valuations all make for a strong environment for risk assets, a reason for us to get more bullish on European and Japanese equities, but also in fixed income products like leveraged loans and Collateralized Loan Obligations. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

In a generally positive environment for corporate credit, the recent performance of high-yield bonds in the telecom, media and technology (TMT) sector offers a market contrast. Our Lead Analyst for High-Yield TMT joins our Head of Corporate Credit Research to explain the divergence.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research for Morgan Stanley.David Hamburger: And I'm David Hamburger, Head of US Sector Corporate Credit Research and Lead Analyst for the high yield telecom, media, and technology sectors.Andrew Sheets: And today on the podcast we'll be discussing the contrast between strong overall markets in credit and a whole lot of volatility in the high yield TMT space.It's Friday, May 31st at 10am in New York.So, David, it's great to talk to you. You know, listeners have probably been hearing about our views on overall markets and credit markets for the 12 months ahead.We have US growth at 2 percent. We have inflation coming down. We had the Fed lowering interest rates. But there’s needless to say; there's some pretty notable contrast between that sort of backdrop and the backdrop we've had for credit year to date, which has been pretty calm, pretty strong -- and what's been going on in your sector.So maybe before we get into the why -- let's talk about the what and bring people up to speed on the saga that's been high yield TMT year.David Hamburger: Yeah. I'm here today to disavow you of any notion that everything is fine and dandy in the market today. So, if you look at the high yield communications sector, it's trading about 325 basis points wide of the overall high yield index. And just to give you that magnitude of that -- the high yield index trading around 300 basis points -- we're talking about 625 basis points over. Now, the high yield communication sector as well is trading about 275 basis points, wider than the next widest sector in the index.And so, it's pretty astounding today, given the market backdrop, how much underperformance we've seen in this sector.Andrew Sheets: What's been causing this just large divergence between high yield TMT and what seems like a lot of other things?David Hamburger: Yeah, I think there are two forces at work here. One's kind of a broader set of issues that I can outline for you. Really, I think it's a combination of one, the maturation of the communications marketplace. Coming out of COVID, we certainly had accelerated adoption of broadband and wireless services. That in and of itself has created a lot of intense competition.And as such, we've seen a lot of technological advances that have created some secular pressures on the space. As well, when you pair that up with elevated financial leverage, all coming together at a time when the marginal cost of capital for companies has increased due to higher interest rates. Those are really some of the underlying forces at work that have driven underperformance in this sector.But some companies have managed to navigate this environment. And I would say by and large, it's those with really strong balance sheets. But that has really cast a shadow on this sector -- is the fundamental and financing issues.When you think about the bloated balance sheets that some of the other companies have had, they've been exploring a whole new set of transactions and, evaluating different options for their balance sheets. And that's probably the more sinister thing that we've seen in the market of late.Andrew Sheets: So, so tell me a little bit more about this. You know, what are some of the types of things that companies can do that often leave the bond holder unhappy?David Hamburger:  We all became all too aware of what private equity sponsors might do back in the heyday of LBOs, and we still live in that world today, and it's really fairly well known.You know, I've been in the credit markets for more than 20 years, but I can't recall a time we've seen so many management teams and controlling shareholders now that are at odds with their creditors because of elevated leverage and the business risks they face. So really, the prospect of real and expected liability management has created a lot of dislocation across companies’ capital structures.So, what have they done? We look and see companies that have been exploring liability manage, taking advantage of weak protections in certain credit documentation in their structure at the expense of other creditors in the same capital structure. So, we have one company where you see this dislocation in their term loans. They have the same pool of collateral between two different term loans with two different maturities. The later dated maturity is trading higher than the nearer dated maturity, strictly or solely because of the better protections in that documentation. And the premise being, you can negotiate with that class of creditors, give them an advantaged positio

Our Chief Europe Economist explains why the region’s outlook over the next year is trending upward, including how higher growth will lead to lower interest rates this cycle.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Jens Eisenschmidt, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Europe Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I will discuss our outlook for Europe’s economy in the second half of 2024 and into next year. It’s Thursday, May 30 at 10am in Frankfurt.So, over the last year, we have had a relatively downbeat outlook for Europe's economy, but as we head into the second half of this year our view is decidedly more optimistic. After bottoming last year, euro area growth should reach 0.7 per cent annualized terms in 2024 and 1.2 per cent in 2025 on the back of stronger consumption and exports. Inflation is on its way to the European Central Bank’s target, paving the way for the ECB to start cutting rates in June with three cuts in 2024, for a total of 75 basis points, and four more cuts in 2025, for a total of 100 basis points.What’s particularly notable, though, is the set-up of this growth rebound is highly unusual for several reasons.Let's start with inflation. In a normal environment, higher growth leads to higher inflation and vice versa. This time is different. The euro area needs to grow faster to get inflation down. The reason is that faster growth should lead to better resource utilization in sectors characterized by labor hoarding or keeping a surplus of employees. This should keep unit labor costs – or how much a business pays its workers to produce one unit of output – in check. We’re expecting further wage increases, mostly driven by the catch-up with past inflation, and so higher productivity is a way to cushion the pass-through to prices.So again, just to repeat, we are in a cycle where we need higher growth to get inflation down and not as usual, we have higher growth and that gets us more inflation. Of course, there is a limit to that. If we get too much growth, that would be an issue potentially for the ECB. And if you get too little growth, that is another issue because then we won't get the productivity rebound.In some sense, you could think of the growth we need as a landing strip and we need to come in at that landing strip precisely; and so far, the signs are there that is exactly the picture we are getting in 2024 and 2025 in Europe.Now the monetary and fiscal policy mix is another area where this cycle stands out. So normally, monetary policy would tighten into an upswing and ease into a downturn, while fiscal policy would be expansionary in a downturn and contractionary in an upswing. Euro area monetary policy is currently restrictive – but it’s set to get less restrictive over time. The likelihood of rates coming down is hardly bad news for growth. But policymakers will need to take care to not reignite inflation in the process. So all of that gives rise to the gradualism that the European Central Bank has been signaling it will use in its policy easing approach. And again, think about the landing strip metaphor. If we are not gradual enough and we reignite a growth too much, and with it inflation, we might be exiting the landing strip in one way or the other.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research reflects on Japanese investors’ interest in the outcome of the upcoming presidential vote in the US.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the upcoming US elections.It's Wednesday, May 29th at 10:30am in New York.I recently returned from Tokyo, having attended and presented at Morgan Stanley's inaugural Japan summit. And while I was asked to present on topics ranging from our fixed income markets outlook to the role of Japan in an increasingly multipolar world, my one-on-one conversations always tracked back to the same client question: who will win the US election.Of course this is a matter of great importance globally. But the investor in Japan is particularly interested in whether possible election outcomes could disrupt their rosy economic outlook – either through new tariffs or increased geopolitical tensions between the US and China, and also North Korea. To that end, many were focused on polls showing former President Trump with sufficient support to win the election, asking how predictive this would be of the ultimate outcome. Here our view remains, for all investors, that polls aren't giving a reliable signal yet. The election is still several months away. And Trump doesn't have leads beyond a normal polling error in sufficient states to win the presidency. So, investors still need to consider the potential impacts of a variety of US electoral outcomes. That's perhaps not the most settling answer for investors, who strive to limit uncertainties. But we think it's the most honest one. And as we've been doing in this space all year, we'll continue to walk you through the outcomes, policy impacts, and resulting market effects you need to be aware of. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Chief Europe Equity Strategist explains why she is forecasting a 23 percent total return for European equities over the next year.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Marina Zavolock, Morgan Stanley’s Chief European Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I’ll discuss why our mid-year outlook extends our bullish view on European equities. It’s Tuesday, May 28, at 10am in London. We have recently updated our outlook for the year ahead, maintaining our bullish view on European equities as we fully incorporate and roll forward our mid-1990s “soft landing” playbook. Like today, the mid-1990's was a period where markets focused on rates, inflation, and related data above anything else. The US and Europe saw soft and “softish” landings, the Fed’s cutting cycle was slower than investors initially expected, and there was an undercurrent of technological innovation. European equities, in particular, are following the mid-1990s path closely, and that means both a mid-cycle extension and a strong market set-up. We have high conviction in our constructive European equities view and have recently raised our one year forward MSCI Europe Index target to 2,500 – 18 percent potential upside. This brings potential total return upside – if we incorporate dividends and buybacks – to 23 percent. So why do we remain bullish? Over the second half of this year in particular we anticipate European equities ongoing re-rating is likely to combine with an emerging European equities earnings recovery. We’ve just come out of one of the strongest earnings seasons Europe has had in several quarters and we anticipate this is only the beginning. Our earnings model projects 7.5 percent earnings growth by year end for MSCI Europe, which is almost double consensus estimates. On top of this, we think the market underappreciates a number of significant thematic tailwinds that benefit European equities. These include rising corporate confidence, an M&A cycle recovery that is leading the global trend, an imminent start to rate cuts, high and rising capital distributions including buybacks, and underappreciated AI diffusion. In terms of our sector preferences, structurally, we continue to prefer Europe’s quality growth sectors. These include Software, Aerospace & Defense, Pharma, and Semiconductors, along with the Banks sector. Shorter-term, we also believe a recovery in bond yield-sensitive stocks has begun, which is expected at this stage in our mid-1990s playbook. We expect this rally to be tactical and bumpy but ultimately more powerful than a similar rotation that occurred around the Fed pivot late last year. We recently upgraded Building & Construction to overweight to play this rotation. Although we believe European equities are in the sweet spot over the second half of 2024, we expect the bar for continued performance to become tougher by the time we get into first half of 2025. Also, our bear case incorporates rising geopolitical risks and lower-than-expected economic growth – the latter in line with our economists' bear case. A US election scenario that would bring a change in the status quo is also a risk for European equities, albeit it’s far more idiosyncratic than broad-based according to our in-depth analysis. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why moderate economic growth offers opportunities in credit markets – if investors choose carefully.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley, along with my colleagues, bring you a variety of perspectives Today, I'll be talking about our outlook for credit markets over the next 12 months.It's Friday, May 24th, at 9 a. m. in New York. Morgan Stanley's global economic and strategy teams have recently published our mid year outlook. Twice a year, all of us get together to take a step back, debating what we think the outlook could look like over the 12 months ahead. For credit, we think that backdrop still looks pretty good.Corporate credit, in representing lending to companies, is an asset class that loves moderation and hates extremes. An economy that's too weak raises the risk that companies fail, and has been consistently bad for returns. But an economy that's too strong also causes challenges, as companies take more risks, the rewards of which often go to stockholders, not their lenders.The good news for credit is that Morgan Stanley's latest economic forecasts are absolutely full of moderation for economic growth. We see the U.S. growing at about 2 percent this year and next and Europe growing at about 1%. Right in that temperate zone, the credit usually finds optimal.We see inflation falling, with core inflation back to 2 percent in the U. S. and Europe over the next 12 months. And monetary policy should also moderate, with the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and the Bank of England All lowering interest rates as this inflation comes down.For credit, forecasts that expect moderate growth, moderating inflation, and moderating interest rates are exactly that down the fairway outcome that we think markets generally like. The challenge, of course, is that spreads have narrowed and lower risk premiums are discounting a lot of good news. So how do investors navigate richer valuations within what we think is still a very supportive economic backdrop?One thing we continue to like is leveraged loans, where yields and spreads we think are more attractive. In the U. S., yields on loans are still north of 9%. We like short dated investment grade bonds, which we think offer a good mix of income and stability, and also happen to correspond to the maturity range that our interest rate colleagues expect yields to see the largest decline.That should help total returns. And in Europe, we don't think spreads are particularly tight. And that should be further supported by relatively upbeat views on the European stock market from our equity strategies. Morgan Stanley's macroeconomic backdrop, which is full of moderation, is supportive for credit.Tighter valuations are a challenge, but given this moderate backdrop, we think they can stay expensive. We still think there are good opportunities within credit, but investors will have to pick their spots. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share thoughts on the market with a friend or colleague today.