Thoughts on the Market

Economic data looks backward while equity markets are looking ahead. Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains why this delays the Federal Reserve in both cutting and hiking rates – and why this is a feature of monetary policy, not a bug.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing why economic data can be counterintuitive for how stocks trade.  It's Monday, August 4th at 11:30am in New York.  So, let’s get after it. Since the lows in April, the rally in stocks has been relentless with no tradable pullbacks. I have been steadfastly bullish since early May primarily due to the V-shaped recovery in earnings revisions breadth that began in mid-April. The rebound in earnings revisions has been a function of the positive reflexivity from max bearishness on tariffs, the AI capex cycle bottoming, and the weaker U.S. dollar. Now, cash tax savings from the One Big Beautiful Bill are an additional benefit to cash flow which should drive higher capital spending and M&A. As usual, stocks have traded ahead of the positive sentiment and the lagging economic data – which leads me to the main point for today. Weak labor data last week may worry some investors in the short term. But ultimately we see that as just another positive catalyst for stocks. Further deterioration would simply get the Fed to start cutting rates sooner and more aggressively.The bond market seems to agree and is now pricing a 90 percent chance of a Fed cut in September, and the 2-year Treasury yield is 80 basis points below the fed[eral] funds rate. This spread is not nearly as severe as last summer when it reached 200 basis points. However, it will widen further if next month's labor data is disappointing again. While weaker economic data could lead to further weakness in equities, the labor data is arguably the most backward-looking data series we follow. It’s also why the Fed tends to be late with rate cuts. Meanwhile, inflation metrics are arguably the second most backward looking data, which explains why the Fed also tends to be late in terms of hiking rates. In my view, it's a feature of monetary policy, not a bug. Finally, in my opinion, the bond market’s influence is more important than President Trump's public calls for Powell to cut rates. The equity market understands this dynamic, too—which is why it also gets ahead of the Fed at various stages of the cycle. We noted in our Mid-Year Outlook that April was a very durable low for equities that effectively priced a mild recession. To fully appreciate this view, one must acknowledge that equities were correcting for the 12 months leading up to April with the average stock down close to 30 percent at the lows. More importantly, it also coincided with a major trough in earnings revisions breadth. In short, Liberation Day marked the end of a significant bear market that began a year earlier. Remember, equity markets bottom on bad news and Liberation Day was the last piece of a long string of bad news that formed the bottom for earnings revisions breadth that we have been laser focused on. To bring it home, economic data is backward looking, earnings revisions and equity markets are forward looking. April was a major low for stocks that discounted the weak economic data we are seeing now. It was also the trough of the rolling recession that we have been in for the past three years and marked the beginning of a rolling recovery and a new bull market. For those who remain skeptical, it’s important to recognize that the unemployment typically rises for 12 months after the equity market bottoms in a recession. Once the growth risk is priced, it’s ultimately a tailwind for margins and stocks, as positive operating leverage arrives and the Fed cuts significantly. Based on this morning’s rebound in stocks, it looks like the equity markets agree.  Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

While investors may now better understand President Trump’s trade strategy, the economic consequences of tariffs remain unclear. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Michael Zezas and our Chief U.S. Economist Michael Gapen offer guidance on the data they are watching.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist. Michael Zezas: Today ongoing effects of tariffs on the U.S. economy. It is Friday, August 1st at 8am in New York. So, Michael, lots of news over the past couple of weeks about the U.S. making trade agreements with other countries. It's certainly dominated client conversations we've had, as I'm assuming it's probably dominated conversations for you as well. Michael Gapen: Yeah certainly a topic that never goes away. It keeps on giving at this point in time. And I guess, Michael, what I would ask you is, what do you make of the recent deals? Does it reduce uncertainty in your mind? Does it leave uncertainty elevated? What’s your short-term outlook for trade policy? Michael Zezas: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that we've reduced the range of potential outcomes in the near term around tariff rates. But we haven't done anything to reduce longer term uncertainties in U.S. trade policy. So, consider, for example, over the last couple of weeks, we have an agreement with Japan and an agreement with Europe – two pretty substantial trading partners – where it appears, the tariff rate that's going to be applied is something like 15 percent. And when you stack up these deals on one another, it looks like we're going to end up in an average effective tariff rate from the U.S. range of kind of 15 to 20 percent. And if you think back a couple of months, that range was much wider and we were potentially talking about levels in the 25 to 30 percent range. So, in that sense, investors might have a bit of a respite from the idea of kind of massive uncertainty around trade policy outcomes. However, longer term, these agreements really just are kind of principles that are set out for behavior, and there's lots of trip wires that could create future potential escalations. So, for example, with the Europe deal, part of the deal is that Europe will commit to purchase a substantial amount of U.S. energy. There's obvious questions as to whether or not the U.S. can actually supply that amidst its own energy needs that are rising substantially over the course of the next year. So, could we end up in a situation where six months to a year from now if those purchases haven't been made – the U.S. sort of presses forward and the administration threatens to re-escalate tariffs again. Really hard to know, but the point is these arrangements have lots of contingencies and other factors that could lead to re-escalation.  But it's fair to say, at least in the near term, that we're in a landing place that appears to be somewhat smaller in terms of the range of potential outcomes. Now, I think a question for investors is going to be – how do we assess what the effects of that have been, right? Because is it fair to say that the economic data that we've received so far maybe isn't fully telling the story of the effects that are being felt quite yet. Michael Gapen: Yeah, I think that's completely right. We've always had the view that it would take several months or more just for tariffs to show up in inflation. And if tariffs primarily act as a tax on the consumer, you have to apply that tax first before economic activity would moderate. So, we've long been forecasting that inflation would begin to pick up in June. We saw a little of that. But it would accelerate through the third quarter, kind of peaking around the August-September period. So, I'd say we've seen the first signs of that, Michael, but we need obviously follow through evidence that it's happening. So, we do expect that in the July, August and September inflation reports, you'll see a lot more evidence of tariffs pushing goods prices higher. So, we'll be dissecting all the details of the CPI looking for evidence of direct effects of tariffs, primarily on goods prices, but also some services prices. So, I'd put that down as the first marker, and we've seen some, early evidence on that. The second then, obviously, is the economy's 70 percent consumption. Tariffs act as a regressive tax on low- and middle-income consumers because non-discretionary purchases are a larger portion of their consumption bundle and a lot of goods prices are as well. Upper income households tend to spend relatively more money on leisure and recreation services. So, we would then expect growth in private consumption, primari

Lisa Shalett, our Wealth Management CIO, and Andrew Sheets, our Head of Corporate Credit Research, conclude their discussion of American Exceptionalism, factoring in fixed income, in the second of a two-part episode.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Andrew Sheets: Today – a today a concluding look at the theme of American exceptionalism and how it factors into fixed income. It's Thursday, July 31st at 4pm in London. Lisa Shalett:  And it's 11am here in New York. So, Andrew, it's my turn to ask you some questions. And yesterday we talked a lot about equity markets, globalization, some of the broader macro shifts. But I wanted to zoom in on the credit markets today and one of our themes in the American Exceptionalism paper was the constraints of debts and deficits and how they play in. With U.S. debts level soaring and interest costs rising, how concerned should investors be? Andrew Sheets: So, you alluded to this a bit on our discussion yesterday that we are in a very interesting divide where you have inequality between very well-off companies and weaker companies that aren't doing as well. You have a lot of division within households between those who are, doing better and struggling more with the rate environment. But you know, I think we also see that the large deficits that the U.S. Federal government are running are in some ways largely mirrored by very, very good private sector financial positions. In aggregate U.S. households have record levels of assets relative to debt at the end of 2024; in aggregate the financial position of the U.S. equity market has never been better. And so, this is a dynamic where lending to the private sector, whether that is to parts of the residential mortgage market or to the corporate credit market, does have some advantages; where not just are you dealing with arguably a better trend of financial position, but you're just getting less issuance. I think there are a number of factors that could cause the market to cause the difference of yield between the government debt and that private sector debt – that so-called spread – to be narrower than it otherwise would be.Lisa Shalett: Well, that's a pretty interesting and provocative idea because, one of the hypotheses that we laid out in our paper is that perhaps one of the consequences of this extraordinary period of monetary stimulus of financial repression and ultra low rates, of massive regulation of the systemically important banking system, has been the explosion of shadow banks, and the private credit markets. Our thesis is they're a misallocation of capital. Has there been excess risk taking – in that area? And how should we think about that asset class, number one? And, number two, are they increasingly, a source of liquidity and issuance, or are they a drain on the system? Andrew Sheets: This is, kind of, where your discussion of normalization is is so interesting because in aggregate household balance sheets are in very good shape; in aggregate corporate balance sheets are in very good shape. But I do think there's a distinct tail of the market. Lets call it 5 percent of the high yield market, where you really are looking at a corporate capital structure that was designed for for a much lower level of rates. It was designed for maybe a immediately post COVID environment where rates were on the floor and expected to stay there for a long period of time. And so, if we are moving to an environment where Fed funds is at 3 or 4. Or as you mentioned – hey, maybe you could justify a rate even a little bit higher and not be wildly off. Well then, you just have the wrong capital structure. You have the wrong level of leverage; and it's actually hard to do much about that other than to restructure that debt, or look to change it in a larger way. So, I think we'll see a dynamic similar to the equity market – where there is less dispersion between the haves and have nots. Lisa Shalett: As we kind of think about where there could be pockets of opportunity in credit and in private credit, both public and private credit, and where there could be risks. Can you just help me with that and explore that a little bit more? Andrew Sheets: I think where credit looks most interesting is in some ways where it looks most boring. I think where the case for credit is strongest is – the investment grade market in the U.S. pays 5.25 percent. A 6 percent long run return might be competitive with certain investors’ long-term equity market forecasts, or at least not a million miles off. I think though the other area where this is going to be interesting is – do we se

In the first of a two-part episode, Lisa Shalett, our Wealth Management CIO, and Andrew Sheets, our Head of Corporate Credit Research, discuss whether the era of “American Exceptionalism” is ending and how investors should prepare for a global market rebalancing.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Andrew Sheets: Today, the first of two episodes tackling a fascinating and complex question. Is American market dominance ending? And what would that mean for investors?It's Wednesday, July 30th at 4pm in London. Lisa Shalett: And it's 11am here in New York. Andrew Sheets: Lisa, it's so great to talk to you again, and especially what we're going to talk about over these two episodes. , a theme that's been coming up regularly on this podcast is this idea of American exceptionalism. This multi-year, almost multi-decade outperformance of the U.S. economy, of the U.S. currency, of the U.S. stock market. And so, it's great to have you on the show, given that you've recently published on this topic in a special report, very topically titled American Exceptionalism: Navigating the Great Rebalancing.So, what are the key pillars behind this idea and why do you think it's so important? Lisa Shalett: Yeah. So, I think that that when you think about the thesis of American exceptionalism and the duration of time that the thesis has endured. I think a lot of investors have come to the conclusion that many of the underpinnings of America's performance are just absolutely inherent and foundational, right? They'll point to America as a, economy of innovation. A market with regulation and capital markets breadth and depth and liquidity a market guided by, , laws and regulation, and a market where, heretofore, we've had relatively decent population growth. All things that tend to lead to growth. But our analysis of the past 15 years, while acknowledging all of those foundational pillars say, ‘Wait a minute, let's separate the wheat from the chaff.’ Because this past 15 years has been, extraordinary and different. And it's been extraordinary and different on at least three dimensions. One, the degree to which we've had monetary accommodation and an extraordinary responsiveness of the Fed to any crisis. Secondly, extraordinary fiscal policy and fiscal stimulus. And third, the peak of globalization a trend that in our humble opinion, American companies were among the biggest beneficiaries of exploiting, despite all of the political rhetoric that considers the costs of that globalization. Andrew Sheets: So, Lisa, let me go back then to the title of your report, which is the Great Rebalancing or navigating the Great Rebalancing. So, what is that rebalancing? What do you think kind of might be in store going forward? Lisa Shalett: The profound out performance, as you noted, Andrew, of both the U.S. dollar and American stock markets have left the world, , at an extraordinarily overweight position to the dollar and to American assets.And that's against a backdrop where we're a fraction of the population. We're 25 percent of global GDP, and even with all of our great companies, we're still only 33 percent of the profit pool. So, we were at a place where not only was everyone overweight, but the relative valuation premia of American equity assets versus equities outside or rest of world was literally a 50 percent premium. And that really had us asking the question, is that really sustainable? Those kind of valuation premiums – at a point when all of these pillars, fiscal stimulus, monetary stimulus, globalization, are at these profound inflection points. Andrew Sheets: You mentioned monetary and fiscal policy a bit as being key to supercharging U.S. markets. Where do you think these factors are going to move in the future, and how do you think that affects this rebalancing idea? Lisa Shalett: Look, I mean, I think we went through a period of time where on a relative basis, relative growth, relative rate spreads, right? The, the dispersion between what you could earn in U.S. assets and what you could earn in other places, and the hedging ratio in those currency markets made owning U.S. assets, just incredibly attractive on a relative basis. As the U.S. now kind of hits this point of inflection when the rest of the world is starting to say, okay, in an America first and an America only policy world, what am I going to do? And I think the responses are that for many other countries, they are going to invest aggressively in defense, in infrastructure, in technology, to respond to de-globalization, if you will. And I think for many of th

AI adoption, dollar weakness and tax savings from the Big Beautiful Bill are some of the factors boosting our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson’s confidence in U.S. stocks.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I will discuss what's driving my optimism on stocks. It's Tuesday, July 29th at 11:30am in New York.  So, let’s get after it. Over the past few weeks, I have been leaning more toward our bull case of 7200 for the S&P 500 by the middle of next year. This view is largely based on a more resilient earnings and cash flow backdrop than anticipated. The drivers are numerous and include positive operating leverage, AI adoption, dollar weakness, cash tax savings from the Big Beautiful Bill, and easy growth comparisons and pent-up demand for many sectors in the market. While many are still focused on tariffs as a headwind to growth, our analysis shows that tariff cost exposures for S&P 500 industry groups is fairly contained given the countries in scope and the exemptions that are still in place from the USMCA. Meanwhile, deals are being signed with our largest trading partners like Japan and Europe that appear favorable to the U.S. Due to the lack of pricing power, the main area of risk in the stock market from tariffs is consumer goods; and that’s why we remain underweight that sector. However, the main tariff takeaway for investors is that the rate of change on policy uncertainty peaked in early April. This is the primary reason why earnings guidance bottomed in April as evidenced by the significant inflection higher in earnings revisions breadth—the key fundamental factor that we have been focused on. Of course, the near-term set up is not without risks. These include still high long-term interest rates, tariff-related inflation and potential margin pressure. As a result, a correction is possible during the seasonally weak third quarter, but pull-backs should be shallow and bought. In addition to the growth tailwinds already cited, it’s worth pointing out that many companies also face very easy growth comparisons. I’ve had a long standing out of consensus view that the U.S. has been experiencing a rolling recession for the last three years. This fits with the fact that much of the soft economic data that has been hovering in recession territory for much of that period as well—things like purchasing manager indices, consumer confidence, and the private labor market. It also aligns with my long-standing view that government spending has helped to keep the headline economic growth statistics strong, while much of the private sector and many consumers have been crowded out by that heavy spending which has also kept the Fed too tight. Meanwhile, private sector wage growth has been in a steady decline over the last several years, and payroll growth across Tech, Financials and Business Services has been negative – until recently. Conversely, Government and Education/Health Services payroll growth has been much stronger over this time horizon. This type of wage growth and sluggish payroll growth in the private sector is typical of an early cycle backdrop. It's a key reason why operating leverage inflects in early cycle environments, and margins expand. Our earnings model is picking up on this underappreciated dynamic, and AI adoption is likely to accelerate this phenomenon. In short, this is looking more and more like an early cycle set up where leaner cost structures drive positive operating leverage after an extended period of wage growth consolidation. Bottom line, the capitulatory price action and earnings estimate cuts we saw in April of this year around Liberation Day represented the end of a rolling recession that began in 2022. Markets bottom on bad news and we are transitioning from that rolling earnings recession backdrop to a rolling recovery environment. The combination of positive earnings and cash flow drivers with the easy growth comparisons fostered by the rolling EPS recession and the high probability of the Fed re-starting the cutting cycle by the first quarter of next year should facilitate this transition. The upward inflection we're seeing in earnings revisions breadth confirms this process is well underway and suggests returns for the average stock are likely to be strong over the next 12-months. In short, buy any dips that may occur in the seasonally weak quarter of the year. Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Our Head of ASEAN Research Nick Lord discusses how Singapore’s technological innovation and market influence are putting it on track to continue rising among the world’s richest countries.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Nick Lord, Morgan Stanley’s Head of ASEAN Research.Today – Singapore is about to celebrate its 60th year of independence. And it’s about to enter its most transformative decade yet.It’s Monday, the 28th of July, at 2 PM in Singapore.Singapore isn’t just marking a significant birthday on August 9th. It’s entering a new era of wealth creation that could nearly double household assets in just five years. That’s right—we’re projecting household net assets in the city state will grow from $2.3 trillion today to $4 trillion by 2030.So, what’s driving this next chapter?Well, Singapore is evolving from a safe harbor for global capital into a strategic engine of innovation and influence driven by three major forces. First, the country’s growing role as a global hub. Second, its early and aggressive adoption of new technologies. And last but not least, a bold set of reforms aimed at revitalizing its equity markets.Together, these pillars are setting the stage for broad-based wealth creation—and investors are taking notice.Singapore is home to just 6 million people, but it’s already the fourth-richest country in the world on a per capita basis. And it's not stopping there.By 2030, we expect the average household net worth to rise from $1.6 million to an impressive $2.5 million. Assets under management should jump from $4 trillion to $7 trillion. And the MSCI Singapore Index could gain 10 percent annually, potentially doubling in value over the next five years. Return on equity for Singaporean companies is also set to rise—from 12 percent to 14 percent—thanks to productivity gains, market reforms, and stronger shareholder returns.But let me come back to this first pillar of Singapore’s growth story. Its ambition to become a hub of hubs. It’s already a major player in finance, trade, and transportation, Singapore is now doubling down on its strengths.In commodities, it handles 20 percent of the world’s energy and metals trading—and it could become a future hub for LNG and carbon trading. Elsewhere, in financial services, Singapore’s also the third largest cross-border wealth booking centre, and the third-largest FX trading hub globally. Tourism is also a key piece of the puzzle, contributing about 4 percent to GDP. The country continues to invest in world-class infrastructure, events, and attractions keeping the visitors—and their dollars—coming.As for technology – the second key pillar of growth – Singapore is going all in. It’s becoming a regional hub for data and AI, with Malaysia and Japan also in the mix. Together, these countries are expected to attract the lion’s share of the $100 billion in Asia’s data center and GenAI investments this decade.Worth noting – Singapore is already a top-10 AI market globally, with over 1,000 startups, 80 research facilities, and 150 R&D teams. It’s also a regional leader in autonomous vehicles, with 13 AVs currently approved for public road trials. And robots are already working at Singapore’s Changi Airport.Finally, despite its economic strength, Singapore’s stock market had long been seen as sleepy — dominated by a few big banks and real estate firms. But that’s changing fast and becoming the third pillar of Singapore’s remarkable growth story.This year, the government rolled out a sweeping set of reforms to breathe new life into the market. That includes tax incentives, regulatory streamlining, and a $4 billion capital injection from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to boost liquidity—especially for small- and mid-cap stocks.We also expect that there will be a push to get listed companies more engaged with shareholders, encouraging them to communicate their business plans and value propositions more clearly. The goal here is to raise Singapore’s price-to-book ratio from 1.7x to 2.3x—putting it on a par with higher-rated markets like Taiwan and Australia.So, what does all this mean for investors?Well, Singapore is not just celebrating its past—it’s building its future. With smart policy, bold innovation, and a clear vision, it’s positioning itself as one of the most dynamic and investable markets in the world.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.

Joining the AI race also requires building out massive physical infrastructure. Our Head of Corporate Credit Research Andrew Sheets explains why credit markets may play a critical role in the endeavor.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Today – how the world may fund $3 trillion of expected spending on AI. It's Friday July 25th at 2pm in London.Whether you factor it in or not, AI is rapidly becoming a regular part of our daily lives. Checking the weather before you step out of the house. Using your smartphone to navigate to your next destination, with real time traffic updates. Writing that last minute wedding speech. An app that reminds you to take your medication or maybe reminds you to power off your device.All of these capabilities require enormous physical infrastructure, from chips to data centers, to the electricity to power it all. And however large AI is seen so far, we really haven't seen anything yet. Over the next five years, we think that global data center capacity increases by a factor of six times. The cost of this spending is set to be extraordinary. $3 trillion by the end of 2028 on just the data centers and their hardware alone. Where will all this money come from? In a recent deep dive report published last week, a number of teams within Morgan Stanley Research attempted to answer just that. First, large cap technology companies, which are also commonly called the hyperscalers. Well, they are large and profitable. We think they may fund half of the spending out of their own cash flows. But that leaves the other half to come from outside sources. And we think that credit markets – corporate bonds, securitized credit, asset-backed finance markets – they're gonna have a large role to play, given the enormous sums involved.For corporate bonds, the asset class closest to my heart, we estimate an additional $200 billion of issuance to fund these endeavors. Technology companies do currently borrow less than other sectors relative to their cash flow, and so we're starting from a relatively good place if you want to be borrowing more – given that they're a small part of the current bond market. While technology is over 30 percent of the S&P 500 Equity Index, it's just 10 percent of the Investment Grade Bond Index.Indeed, a relevant question might be why these companies don't end up borrowing more through corporate bonds, given this relatively good starting position. Well, some of this we think is capacity. The largest non-financial issuers of bonds today have at most $80 to $90 billion of bonds outstanding. And so as good as these big tech businesses are, asking investors to make them the largest part of the bond market effectively overnight is going to be difficult. Some of our thinking is also driven by corporate finance. We are still in the early stages of this AI build out where the risks are the highest. And so, rather than take these risks on their own balance sheet, we think many tech companies may prefer partnerships that cost a bit more but provide a lot more flexibility. One such partnership that you'll likely to hear a lot more about is Asset Backed Finance or ABF. We see major growth in this area, and we think it may ultimately provide roughly $800 billion of the required funding.The stakes of this AI build out are high. It's not hyperbole to say that many large tech companies see this race to develop AI technology as non-negotiable. The cost of simply competing in this race, let alone winning it – could be enormous. The positive side of this whole story is that we're in the early innings of one of the next great runs of productive capital investment, something that credit markets have helped fund for hundreds of years. The risks, as can often be the case with large spending, is that more is built than needed; that technology does change, or that more mundane issues like there not being enough electricity change the economics of the endeavor.AI will be a theme set to dominate the investment debate for years to come. Credit may not be the main vector of the story. But it's certainly a critical part of it. Thank you as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

The Trump administration unveiled a 28-page AI Action Plan, outlining more than 90 policy actions, with an ambition for the U.S. to win the AI race. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy Michael Zezas, and U.S. Public Policy Strategist Ariana Salvatore, explain why investors need to keep an eye on AI policy.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy.Ariana Salvatore: And I'm Ariana Salvatore, U.S. Public Policy Strategist.Michael Zezas: Today we're diving into the administration's newly released AI action plan. What's in It, what it means for markets, and where the challenges to implementation might lie.It's Thursday, July 24th at 10am in New York.Things are not all quiet on the policy front, but with the fiscal bill having passed Congress and trade tensions simmering ahead of the new August 1st deadline, clients are asking what the administration might focus on that investors might need to know more about.Well, this week it seems to be AI.The White House just unveiled its sweeping AI Action Plan, the first big policy-signaling document since the administration canceled the implementation of former President Biden's AI Diffusion Rule. So, Ariana, what do we need to focus on here?Ariana Salvatore: This document is basically the administration signaling how it intends to cement America's role in the global development of AI – through a mix of both domestic and global policy initiatives. There are over 90 policy actions outlined in the document across three main pillars: innovation, infrastructure, and global leadership.Michael Zezas: That's right. And even though there's still some important details to flesh out here in terms of what these initiatives might practically mean, it's worth delving into what the different areas are outlining and what it might mean for investors here.Ariana Salvatore: So first on the innovation front. The plan calls for removing regulatory barriers to AI development, encouraging open-source models, and investing in interpretability and robustness. There's also a push throughout the document to build world class data sets and accelerate AI adoption across the federal agencies.Michael Zezas: Infrastructure is another main pillar here, and keeping with the theme of loosening regulation, the plan includes fast tracking permits for data centers, expanding access to federal land, and improving grid interconnection for power generation. There's also a call to stabilize the existing grid and prioritize dispatchable energy sources like nuclear and geothermal.But that's where we may see some of these frictions emerge. As our colleague Stephen Byrd has talked about quite a bit, the grid remains a major constraint for power generation; and even with some of these executive orders, the President's ability to control scaling power capacity is somewhat limited.Many of these policy tools to increase energy production to facilitate more data centers will likely have to be addressed by Congress, especially if any of these policy changes are to be more durable.Ariana Salvatore: One area where the executive actually does have pretty broad discretion to control is trade policy, and this document focused a lot on the U.S.’ role in the world as we see increasing AI competition on a global scale.So, to that point, the third pillar is around global leadership. Specifically, the plan calls for the U.S. to export its full AI stack – hardware, models, standards – to allies, while simultaneously tightening export controls on rivals. China's clearly a focal point here, and that's one that is explicitly called out in the document.Michael Zezas: Right. And so, it all seems part of a proposal to form in International AI Alliance built on shared values and open trade; and the plan explicitly frames AI leadership as a strategic priority in the multipolar world.It calls for embedding U.S. AI standards and global governance bodies while using export controls and diplomatic tools to limit adversarial influence. But you know, importantly, something we'll have to track here is what exactly are these standards going to be and how that will shape how industry in the U.S. around AI has to behave. Those details are not yet forthcoming.So, there's a couple of threads here across all of this; deregulation, pushing for more energy generation, trade policy aspects. Ariana, what do you think it all means for investors? Are there key sectors here that face more constraints or face more tailwinds that investors need to know about?Ariana Salvatore: Yeah, so really two key takeaways from this document. First of all, AI policy is a priority for the administration, and we're seeing them pursue efforts to reduce regulatory barriers to data center construction. Although those could run into some legal and administrative hurdles. All else equal reduct

Our U.S. Media & Entertainment Analyst Benjamin Swinburne discusses how GenAI is transforming content creation, distribution and also raising some serious ethical questions.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Ben Swinburne, Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Media and Entertainment Analyst. Today – GenAI is poised to shake up the entertainment business. It’s Wednesday, July 23, at 10am in New York.It's never been easier to create art for anyone – with a little help from GenerativeAI. You can transform photos of yourself or loved ones in the style of a popular Japanese movie studio or any era of visual art to your liking. You can create a short movie by simply typing in a few prompts. Even I can speak to youin several different languages. I can ask about the weather:Hvordan er været i dag?Wie ist das wetter heute?आज मौसम कैसा है? In the media and entertainment industry, GenAI is expected to bring about a seismic shift in how content is made and consumed. A recent production used AI to de-age actors and recreate the likeness of a deceased performer—cutting what used to take hundreds of VFX artists a year to just a few months with a small team. There are many other examples of how GenAI is revolutionizing how stories are told, from scriptwriting and editing to visual effects and dubbing. In music, GenAI is helping music labels identify emerging talent and generate new compositions. GenAI can even create songs using the voices of long-gone artists – potentially extending revenue far beyond an artist’s lifetime. GenAI-driven tools have the potential to reduce TV and film production costs by 10–30 percent, with animation and post-production among the biggest savings opportunities. GenAI could also transform how content reaches audiences. Recommendation engines can become even more predictive, using behavioral data to serve up exactly what listeners want—sometimes before we know what we want. And there’s more studios can achieve in post production. GenAI can already dub content in multiple languages, even syncing mouth movements to match the new dialogue. This makes global distribution faster, cheaper, and more culturally relevant. With better engagement comes better monetization. Platforms will use GenAI to introduce new pricing tiers, targeted advertising, and personalized superfan content that taps into niche audiences willing to pay more. But all this innovation brings up profound ethical concerns. First, there’s the issue of consent and copyright. Can GenAI tools legally use an actor’s name, likeness or voice? Then there’s the question of authorship. If an AI writes a script or composes a song, who owns the rights? The creator or the GenAI model? Labor unions are understandably worried. In 2023, AI was a major sticking point in negotiations between Hollywood studios and writers’ and actors’ guilds. The fear? That AI could replace human jobs or devalue creative work. There are also legal battles. Multiple lawsuits are underway over whether AI models trained on copyrighted material without permission violate intellectual property laws. The outcomes of these cases could reshape the entire industry. But here’s a big question no one can ignore: Will audiences care if content is AI-generated? Some consumers are fascinated by AI-created music or visuals, while others crave the emotional depth and authenticity that comes from human storytelling. Made-by-humans could become a premium label in itself. Now, despite GenAI’s rapid rise, not every corner of entertainment is vulnerable. Live sports, concerts, and theater remain largely insulated from AI disruption. These experiences thrive on real-time emotion, unpredictability, and human connection—things AI can’t replicate. In an AI-saturated world, the value of live events and sports rights will rise, favoring owners of sports rights and live platforms. So where do we go from here? By and large, we’re entering an era where storytelling is no longer limited by budget or geography. GenAI is lowering the barriers to entry, expanding the creative class, and reshaping the economics of media. The winners in this new landscape will likely be companies that can scale—platforms with massive user bases, deep data pools, and the engineering talent to integrate GenAI seamlessly. But there’s also room for agile newcomers who can innovate faster than the incumbents and disrupt the disrupters. No doubt, as the tools get better, the questions get harder. And that’s where the real story begins. 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 Asia Economist Chetan Ahya discusses three key decisions that will determine Asia’s international investment position and affect currency trends. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Asia Economist.Today – an issue that’s gaining traction in boardrooms and trading floors: the three big decisions Asia investors are facing right now.It’s Tuesday, July 22nd, at 2 PM in Hong Kong.So, let’s start with the big picture.Over the past 13 years, Asia’s international investment position has doubled to $46 trillion. A sizable proportion of that is invested in U.S. assets.But the recent weakness in the U.S. dollar gives rise to three important questions for investors across Asia: Should they diversify away from U.S. assets? How much of Asia’s incremental savings should be allocated to the U.S.? Or should they hedge their U.S. exposure more aggressively?First on the diversification debate. Investors are voicing concern over the U.S. macro outlook, given the twin deficits. At the same time, our U.S. economics team continues to see growth slowing, as better than expected fiscal impulse in the near term will not fully offset the drag from tariffs and tighter immigration policies. This convergence in U.S. growth and interest rates with global peers—and continued debate about the U.S. dollar’s safe haven status has already led to U.S. dollar depreciation. And our macro strategists expect further depreciation of the U.S.D by another 8-9 percent by [the] second quarter of next year.  So what is the data indicating? Are investors already diversifying? Let’s look at Asia’s security portfolio as that data is more transparently available. Out of the total international investment of $46 trillion dollars, Asia’s securities portfolio alone is worth $21 trillion. And of that, $8.6 trillion is in U.S. assets as of [the] first quarter of 2025. Now here’s an interesting point: China’s holding had already peaked in 2013, but Asia ex-China’s holdings of U.S. assets has been increasing. Asia ex-China’s U.S. holdings hit a record $7.2 trillion in the first quarter, largely driven by equities. In other words, in aggregate, Asia investors are not diversifying at the moment. But they are allocating less from their incremental savings. Asia’s current account surplus remains high—at $1.1 trillion in the first quarter. And even if it narrows a bit from here, the structural surplus means Asia’s total international investment position will keep growing. However, incremental allocations to the U.S. are beginning to decline. The share of U.S. assets in Asia’s securities portfolio peaked at 41.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 and started to dip in the first quarter of this year. In fact, our global cross asset strategist Serena Tang notes that Asian investors have reduced net buying of U.S. equities in the second quarter. Finally, let’s talk about hedging. Asian investors have started to increase hedging of their U.S. investment position and we see increased hedging demand as one reason why Asian currencies have strengthened recently. Take Taiwan life insurance—often seen as [a] proxy for broader trends. While their hedge ratios were still falling in the first quarter, they started increasing again in the second. That lines up with the sharp appreciation of [the] Taiwanese dollar in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the currencies of other economies with large U.S. asset holdings have also appreciated since the dollar’s peak. These are clear signals to us that increasing hedging demand is influencing foreign exchange markets.All in all, Asia’s $46 trillion investment position gives it an enormous influence. Whether investors decide to diversify, allocate less or stay the course, and how much to hedge will affect currency trends going forward.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 Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends next year, our Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discusses the potential policy impact of a so-called “shadow Fed chair”.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley’s Global Chief Economist. And today – well, there’s a topic that’s stirring up a lot of speculation on Wall Street and in Washington. It’s this idea of a Shadow Fed Chair. It’s Monday, July 21, at 2 PM in New York. Let’s start with the basics. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s term expires in May of next year. And look at any newspaper that covers the economy or markets, and you will see that President Trump has been critical of monetary policy under Chair Powell. Those facts have led to a flurry of questions: Who might succeed Chair Powell? When will we know? And—maybe most importantly—how should investors think about these implications? President Trump has been clear in his messaging: he wants the Fed to cut rates more aggressively. But even though it seems clear that there will be a new Chair in June of next year, market pricing suggests a policy rate just above 3 percent by the end of next year. That level is lower than the current Fed rate of 4.25 [percent] to 4.50 [percent], but not aggressively so. In fact, Morgan Stanley’s base case is that the policy rate is going to be even a bit lower than market pricing suggests. So why this disconnect? First, although there are several names that have been floated by media sources, and the Secretary of the Treasury has said that a process to select the next Chair has begun, we really just don’t know who Powell’s successor would be. News reports suggest we will get a name by late summer though. Another key point, from my perspective, is even when Powell’s term as Chair ends, the Fed’s reaction function—which is to say how the Fed reacts to incoming economic data—well, it’s probably not going to change overnight. The Federal Open Market Committee, or the FOMC, makes policy and that policy making is a group effort.  And that group dynamic tends to restrain sudden shifts in policy. So, even after Powell steps down, this internal dynamic could keep policy on a fairly steady course for a while. But some changes are surely coming. First, there’s a vacancy on the Fed Board in January. And that seat could easily go to Powell’s successor—before the Chair position officially changes.  In other words, we might see what people are calling a Shadow Chair, sitting on the FOMC, influencing policy from the inside.Would that matter to markets?Possibly. Especially if the successor is particularly vocal and signals a markedly different stance in policy.  But again, the same committee dynamics that should keep policy steady so far might limit any other immediate shifts. Even with an insider talking. As importantly, history suggests that political appointees often shed their past affiliations once they take office, focusing instead on the Fed’s dual mandate: maximum sustainable employment and stable prices.But there are always quirky twists to most stories: Powell’s seat on the Board doesn’t actually expire when his term as Chair ends. Technically, he could stay on as a regular Board member—just like Michael Barr did after stepping down as the Vice Chair for Supervision. Now Powell hasn’t commented on all this, so for now, it’s just a thought experiment. But here’s another thought experiment: the FOMC is technically a separate agency from the Board of Governors. Now, by tradition, the chair of the board is picked by the FOMC to be chair of the FOMC, but that's not required by law. In one version of the world, in theory, the committee could choose someone else. Would that happen?  Well, I think that's unlikely. In my experience, the Fed is an institution that has valued orthodoxy and continuity. But it’s just a reminder that rules aren’t always quite as rigid as they seem. And regardless, the Chair of the Fed always matters. While the FOMC votes on policy, the Chair sets the tone, frames the debate, and often guides where consensus ends up. And over time, as new appointees join the Board, the new Chair’s influence will only grow. Even the selection of Reserve Bank Presidents is subject to a Board veto, and that would give the Chair indirect sway over the entire FOMC.Where does all of this leave us? For now, this Shadow Chair debate is more of a nuance than the primary narrative. We don’t expect the Fed’s reaction function to change between now and May. But beyond that, the range of outcomes starts to widen more and more and more.  Until then, I would say the bigger risk to our Fed forecast isn’t politics. It's our forecast for the economy—and on that front we remain, as always, very humble. Well, thanks for listening. And if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen; and share Thou

Markets may seem calm following recent policy headlines, but for Michael Zezas, our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy, investors may need to wait on more data to assess whether the macroenvironment will remain stable.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Today: Why there's no summer slowdown yet for U.S. policy catalysts for the financial markets. It's Friday, July 18th at 8am in New York. The past week and a half has seen many major policy, events and headlines relevant to the outlook for financial markets. This includes more speculation by the U.S. administration over leadership at the Fed, more information about the deficit impact of the new fiscal bill, and – perhaps most tangibly – announcements of new tariffs that, if they take effect, will be a meaningful step up from already elevated levels. It would all suggest a weaker growth outlook and less overseas demand for U.S. assets. Yet major financial markets seem to have shrugged it all off. The S & P and the U.S. dollar are up about 1 percent over that time, and Treasury yields are modestly higher. So, what's going on? Two possibilities to consider, and it implies investors should pay more attention than they may be inclined to this summer. First, when it comes to the impact of tariffs on the economy, it's possible we're dealing with a delayed impact. The effective average U.S. tariff rate shot up from 3 to 4 percent earlier this year to 13 percent, and if recent announcements go through, that could exceed 20 percent. That's a major escalation in costs for U.S. companies and consumers and something our economists argue takes growth down to 1 percent and elevates the possibility of a recession. But our economists also point out that we may not be experiencing these cost increases quite yet. History suggests several months of lag between implementation and economic impact as companies leverage existing lower cost inventory before making tough decisions on pricing and managing their own costs. That means hard economic data likely does not yet tell us about the impact or lack thereof of tariffs, but that may change in the coming months. Second. It's also possible that the recent announcements of tariff increases don't tell us the whole story. As my colleagues in our equity strategy team point out, corporate America's cost base is most sensitive to the U.S.' largest trading partners – China, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. As we've discussed in prior episodes, we see tariff rate increases as likely on all these trading partners as tough negotiations continue. However, the details will matter greatly if rates are increased, but with a healthy dose of exceptions or quotas. Even if they diminish over time, then the real impact could be significantly blunted. In that case, markets would resume taking cues from other factors such as earnings revisions and forward-looking expectations around AI driven productivity. So bottom line, market movements suggest investors are assuming benign U.S. policy outcomes. But there's plenty of developments to track in the coming weeks and months to test if those assumptions will hold. Trade policy details and hard economic data are key among them. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review, and tell your friends about the podcast. We want everyone to listen.

The dollar’s bearish run is likely to affect U.S. equity markets. Michelle Weaver, our U.S. Thematic & Equity Strategist, and David Adams, our Head of G10 FX Strategy, discuss what investors should consider.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michelle Weaver: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver, U.S. Thematic and Equity strategist at Morgan Stanley. David Adams: And I'm Dave Adams, head of G10 FX Strategy here at Morgan Stanley. Michelle Weaver: Our colleagues were recently on the show to talk about the impact of the weak dollar on European equities. And today we wanted to continue that conversation by looking at what a weak U.S. dollar means for the U.S. equity market.It's Thursday, July 17th at 2pm in London. Morgan Stanley has a bearish view on the U.S. dollar. And this is something our chief global FX strategist James Lord spoke about recently on the show. But Dave, I want to go over the outlook again, since Morgan Stanley has a really differentiated view on this. Do you think the dollar will continue to depreciate during the remainder of the year? David Adams: We do, and we do. We have been dollar bears this whole year, and it has been very out of consensus. But we do think the weakness will continue and our forecasts remain one of the most bearish on the street for the dollar. The dollar has had its worst first half of the year since 1973, and the dollar index has fallen about 10 percent year to date, but we think we're at the intermission rather than the finale. The second act for the dollar weakening trend should come over the next 12 months as U.S. interest rates and U.S. growth rates converge to that of the rest of the world. And FX hedging of existing U.S. assets held by foreign investors adds further negative risk premium to the dollar. The result is that we're looking for yet another 10 percent drop in the dollar by the end of next year. Michelle Weaver: That's really interesting and a differentiated view for Morgan Stanley. When I think about one of the key themes that we've been following this year, it's the multipolar world or a shift away from globalization to more localized spheres of influence. This is an important element to the dollar story.How have tariffs impacted currency and your outlook? David Adams: Tariffs play a key role in this framework. Tariffs have a positive impact on inflation, but a negative impact on U.S. growth. But the inflation impact comes faster and the negative impact on growth and employment that comes a bit later. This puts the Fed in a really tough spot and it's why our economists are pretty out of consensus in calling for both no cuts this year, and a much faster and deeper pace of cuts in 2026. The results for me in FX land is that the market is underestimating just how low the Fed will go and just how low U.S. rates will go, in general. Tariffs play a big role in helping to generate this rate convergence, and rate differentials are a fundamental driver of currencies. The more that U.S. rates are going to fall, the more likely it is that the dollar keeps falling too. Michelle Weaver: Tariffs have certainly impacted heavily on our view for the U.S. equity market and it's something that no asset class is not impacted by really. Given the volatility and the magnitude of the move we've seen this year, are foreign investors hedging more? David Adams: We do think they've started hedging more, but the bulk of the move is really ahead of us. Foreign investors own a massive amount of U.S. assets. European investors alone own $8 trillion of U.S. bonds and stocks, and that's only about a quarter of total foreign ownership of U.S. assets. Now when foreign investors buy U.S. assets, they have to sell their currency and buy the dollar. But at some point, you're going to have to bring that money back, so you're going to have to sell the dollar and buy back your home currency again. If the dollar rises over this period, you've made a gain, congratulations. But if it falls, you've made a loss. Now a lot of foreign investors will hedge this currency risk, and they'll use instruments like forwards and options to do so. But in the case of the U.S., we found that a lot of foreign investors really choose not to hedge this exposure, particularly on the equity side. And this reflects both a view that the dollar would appreciate; so, they want to take that gain. But it also reflects the dollar's negative correlation to equities. So, what's changing now? Well, a lot of investors are starting to rethink this decision and add those FX hedges, which really means dollar selling. Now, there's a lot of factors motivating their decision to hedge. One, of course is price. If U.S. rates are going to converge meaningfully to the rest of the world – like we expect – that flattens out the forward curve and makes those forwards cheaper to

U.S. tariffs have had limited impact so far on inflation and corporate earnings. Our Head of Corporate Credit Research Andrew Sheets explains why – and when – that might change.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Today I'm going to talk about why tariffs are showing up everywhere – but the data; and why we think this changes this quarter. It's Wednesday, July 16th at 2pm in London. Investors have faced tariff headlines since at least February. The fact that it's now mid-July and markets are still grinding higher is driving some understandable skepticism that they're going to have their promised impact. Indeed, we imagine that maybe more of one of you is groaning and saying, ‘What? Another tariff episode?’ But we do think this theme remains important for markets. And above all, it's a factor we think is going to hit very soon. We think it's kind of now – the third quarter – when the promised impact of tariffs on economic data and earnings really start to come through. My colleague Jenna Giannelli and I discussed some of the reasons why, on last week's episode focused on the retail sector. But what I want to do next is give a little bit of that a broader context. Where I want to start is that it's really about tariff impact picking up right about now. The inflation readings that we got earlier this week started to show US core inflation picking up again, driven by more tariff sensitive sectors. And while second quarter earnings that are being reported right about now, we think will generally be fine, and maybe even a bit better than expected; the third quarter earnings that are going to be generated over the next several months, we think those are more at risk from tariff related impact. And again, this could be especially pronounced in the consumer and retail sector. So why have tariffs not mattered so much so far, and why would that change very soon? The first factor is that tariff rates are increasing rapidly. They've moved up quickly to a historically high 9 percent as of today; even with all of the pauses and delays. And recently announced actions by the US administration over just the last couple of weeks could effectively double this rate again -- from 9 percent to somewhere between 15 to 20 percent.A second reason why this is picking up now is that tariff collections are picking up now. US Customs collected over $26 billion in tariffs in June, which annualizes out to about 1 percent of GDP, a very large number. These collections were not nearly as high just three months ago. Third, tariffs have seen pauses and delayed starts, which would delay the impact. And tariffs also exempted goods that were in transit, which can be significant from goods coming from Europe or Asia; again, a factor that would delay the impact. But these delays are starting to come to fruition as those higher tariff collections and higher tariff rates would suggest. And finally, companies did see tariffs coming and tried to mitigate them. They ordered a lot of inventory ahead of tariff rates coming into effect. But by the third quarter, we think they've sold a lot of that inventory, meaning they no longer get the benefit. Companies ordered a lot of socks before tariffs went into effect. But by the third quarter and those third quarter earnings, we think they will have sold them all. And the new socks they're ordering, well, they come with a higher cost of goods sold. In short, we think it's reasonable to expect that the bulk of the impact of tariffs and economic and earnings data still lies ahead, especially in this quarter – the third quarter of 2025. We continue to think that it's probably in August and September rather than June-July, where the market will care more about these challenges as core inflation data continues to pick up. For credit, this leaves us with an up in quality bias, especially as we move through that August to September period. And as Jenna and I discussed last week, we are especially cautious on the retail credit sector, which we think is more exposed to these various factors converging in the third quarter. Thank you as always for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen; and also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Our analysts Paul Walsh, James Lord and Marina Zavolock discuss the dollar’s decline, the strength of the euro, and the mixed impact on European equities.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Paul Walsh: Welcome to Thoughts on the Markets. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's Head of European Product. And today we're discussing the weakness we've seen year-to-date in the U.S. dollar and what this means for the European stock market.It's Tuesday, July the 15th at 3:00 PM in London.I'm delighted to be joined by my colleagues, Marina Zavolock, Morgan Stanley's Chief European Equity Strategist, and James Lord, Morgan Stanley's Chief Global FX Strategist.James, I'm going to start with you because I think we've got a really differentiated view here on the U.S. dollar. And I think when we started the year, the bearish view that we had as a house on the U.S. dollar, I don't think many would've agreed with, frankly. And yet here we are today, and we've seen the U.S. dollar weakness proliferating so far this year –  but actually it's more than that.When I listen to your view and the team's view, it sounds like we've got a much more structurally bearish outlook on the U.S. dollar from here, which has got some tenure. So, I don't want to steal your thunder, but why don't you tell us, kind of frame the debate, for us around the U.S. dollar and what you're thinking.James Lord: So, at the beginning of the year, you're right. The consensus was that, you know, the election of Donald Trump was going to deliver another period of what people have called U.S. exceptionalism.Paul Walsh: Yeah.James Lord: And with that it would've been outperformance of U.S. equities, outperformance of U.S. growth, continued capital inflows into the United States and outperformance of the U.S. dollar.At the time we had a slightly different view. I mean, with the help of the economics team, we took the other side of that debate largely on the assumption that actually U.S. growth was quite likely to slow through 2025, and probably into 2026 as well – on the back of restrictions on immigration, lack of fiscal stimulus. And, increasingly as trade tariffs were going to be implemented…Paul Walsh: Yeah. Tariffs, of course…James Lord: That was going to be something that weighed on growth.So that was how we set out the beginning of the year. And as the year has progressed, the story has evolved. Like some of the other things that have happened, around just the extent to which tariff uncertainty has escalated. The section 899 debate.Paul Walsh: Yeah.James Lord: Some of the softness in the data and just the huge amounts of uncertainty that surrounds U.S. policymaking in general has accelerated the decline in the U.S. dollar. So, we do think that this has got further to go. I mean, the targets that we set at the beginning of the year, we kind of already met them. But when we published our midyear outlook, we extended the target.So, we may even have to go towards the bull case target of euro-dollar of 130.Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.James Lord: But as the U.S. data slows and the Fed debate really kicks off where at Morgan Stanley U.S. Economics research is expecting the Fed to ultimately cut to 2.5 percent...Paul Walsh: Yeah.Lord: That’s really going to really weigh on the dollar as well. And this comes on the back of a 15-year bull market for the dollar.Paul Walsh: That's right.James Lord:  From 2010 all the way through to the end of last year, the dollar has been on a tear.Paul Walsh: On a structural bull run.James Lord: Absolutely. And was at the upper end of that long-term historical range. And the U.S. has got 4 percent GDP current account deficit in a slowing growth environment. It's going to be tough for the dollar to keep going up. And so, we think we're sort of not in the early stages, maybe sort of halfway through this dollar decline. But it's a huge change compared to what we've been used to. So, it's going to have big implications for macro, for companies, for all sorts of people.Paul Walsh: Yeah. And I think that last point you make is absolutely critical in terms of the implications for corporates in particular, Marina, because that's what we spend every hour of every working day thinking about. And yes, currency's been on the radar, I get that. But I think this structural dynamic that James alludes to perhaps is not really conventional wisdom still, when I think about the sector analysts and how clients are thinking about the outlook for the U.S. dollar.But the good news is that you've obviously done detailed work in collaboration with the floor to understand the complexities of how this bearish dollar view is percolating across the different stocks and sectors. So, I wondered if you could walk us through what your observations are and what your conclusions are having done the work.Marina Zavolock: First of all, I jus

Stocks hold steady as tariff uncertainty continues. Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains how policy deferrals, earnings resilience and forward guidance are driving the market.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing why stocks remain so resilient. It's Monday, July 14th at 11:30am in New York. So, let’s get after it. Why has the equity market been resilient in the face of new tariff announcements? Well first, the import cost exposure for S&P 500 industries is more limited given the deferrals and exemptions still in place like the USMCA compliant imports from Mexico. Second, the higher tariff rates recently announced on several trading partners are generally not perceived to be the final rates as negotiations progress. I continue to believe these tariffs will ultimately end up looking like a 10 percent consumption tax on imports that generate significant revenue for the Treasury. And finally, many companies pre-stocked inventory before the tariffs were levied and so the higher priced goods have not yet flowed through the cost of goods sold. Furthermore, with the market’s tariffs concerns having peaked in early April, the market is looking forward and focused on the data it can measure. On that score, the dramatic v-shaped rebound in earnings revisions breadth for the S&P 500 has been a fundamental tailwind that justifies the equity rally since April in the face of continued trade and macro uncertainty. This gauge is one of our favorites for predicting equity prices and it troughed at -25 percent in mid-April. It’s now at +3 percent. The sectors with the most positive earnings revisions breadth relative to the S&P 500 are Financials, Industrials and Software — three sectors we continue to recommend due to this dynamic. The other more recent development helping to support equities is the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. While this Bill does not provide incremental fiscal spending to support the economy or lower the statutory tax rate, it does lower the cash earnings tax rates for companies that spend heavily on both R&D and Capital Goods.Our Global Tax Team believes we could see cash tax rates fall from 20 percent today back toward the 13 percent level that existed before some of these benefits from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that expired in 2022. This benefit is also likely to jump start what has been an anemic capital spending cycle for corporate America, which could drive both higher GDP and revenue growth for the companies that provide the type of equipment that falls under this category of spending. Meanwhile, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income is a tax incentive that benefits U.S. companies earning income from foreign markets. It was designed to encourage companies to keep their intellectual property in the U.S. rather than moving it to countries with lower tax rates. This deduction was scheduled to decrease in 2026, which would have raised the effective tax rate by approximately 3 percent. That risk has been eliminated in the Big Beautiful Bill. Finally, the Digital Service Tax imposed on online companies that operate overseas may be reduced. Late last month, Canada announced that it would rescind its Digital Service Tax on the U.S. in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the U.S. This would be a major windfall for online companies and some see the potential for more countries, particularly in Europe, to follow Canada’s lead as trade negotiations with the U.S. continue. Bottom line, while uncertainty around tariffs remains high, there are many other positive drivers for earnings growth over the next year that could more than offset any headwinds from these policies. This suggests the recent rally in stocks is justified and that investors may not be as complacent as some are fearing. Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

As U.S. retailers manage the impacts of increased tariffs, they have taken a number of approaches to avoid raising prices for customers. Our Head of Corporate Strategy Andrew Sheets and our Head of U.S. Consumer Retail and Credit Research Jenna Giannelli discuss whether they can continue to do so.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Jenna Giannelli: And I'm Jenna Giannelli, Head of U.S. Consumer and Retail Credit Research.Andrew Sheets: And today on the podcast, we're going to dig into one of the biggest conundrums in the market today. Where and when are tariffs going to show up in prices and margins? It's Friday, July 11th at 10am in New York. Jenna, it's great to catch up with you today because I think you can really bring some unique perspective into one of the biggest puzzles that we're facing in the market today. Even with all of these various pauses and delays, the U.S. has imposed historically large tariffs on imports. And we're seeing a rapid acceleration in the amount of money collected from those tariffs by U.S. customs. These are real hard dollars that importers – or somebody else – are paying. Yet we haven't seen these tariffs show up to a significant degree in official data on prices – with recent inflation data relatively modest. And overall stock and credit markets remain pretty strong and pretty resilient, suggesting less effect.So, are these tariffs just less impactful than expected, or is there something else going on here with timing and severity? And given your coverage of the consumer and retail sectors, which is really at the center of this tariff debate – what do you think is going on?Jenna Giannelli: So yes, this is a key question and one that is dominating a lot of our client conversations. At a high level, I'd point to a few things. First, there's a timing issue here. So, when tariffs were first announced, retailers were already sitting on three to four months worth of inventory, just due to natural industry lead times. And they were able to draw down on this product.This is mostly what they sold in 1Q and likely into 2Q, which is why you haven't seen much margin or pricing impact thus far. Companies – we also saw them start to stock up heavily on inventory before the tariffs and at the lower pause rate tariffs, which is the product you referenced that we're seeing coming in now. This is really going to help mitigate margin pressure in the second quarter that you still have this lower cost inventory flowing through. On top of this timing consideration, retailers – we've just seen utilizing a range of mitigation measures, right? So, whether it's canceled or pause shipments from China, a shifting production mix or sourcing exposure in the short run, particularly before the pause rate on China. And then really leaning into just whether it's product mix shifts, cost savings elsewhere in the PNL, and vendor negotiations, right? They're really leaning into everything in their toolbox that they can. Pricing too has been talked about as something that is an option, but the option of last resort. We have heard it will be utilized, but very tactically and very surgically, as we think about the back half of the year. When you put this all together, how much impact is it having? On average from retailers that we heard from in the first quarter, they thought they would be able to mitigate about half of the expected tariff headwind, which is actually a bit better than we were expecting. Finally, I'll just comment on your comment regarding market performance. While you're right in that the overall equity and credit markets have held up well, year-to-date, retail equities and credit have fared worse than their respective indices. What's interesting, actually, is that credit though has significantly outperformed retail equities, which is a relationship we think should converge or correct as we move throughout the balance of the year.Andrew Sheets: So, Jenna, retailers saw this coming. They've been pulling various levers to mitigate the impact. You mentioned kind of the last lever that they want to pull is prices, raising prices, which is the macro thing that we care about. The thing that would actually show up in inflation. How close are we though to kind of running out of other options for these guys? That is, the only thing left is they can start raising prices?Jenna Giannelli: So closer is what I would say. We're likely not going to see a huge impact in 2Q, more likely as we head into 3Q and more heavily into the all-important fourth quarter holiday season. This is really when those higher cost goods are going to be flowing through the PNL and retailers need to offset this as they've utilized a lot of their other mitigation strategies. They've moved what they could move. They've negotiated where they could, they've cut where they could cut. An

The ultimate market outcomes of President Trump’s tactical tariff escalation may be months away. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy Michael Zezas takes a look at implications for investors now.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Today: The latest on U.S. tariffs and their market impact. It’s Thursday, July 10th at 12:30pm in New York. It's been a newsy week for U.S. trade policy, with tariff increases announced across many nations. Here’s what we think investors need to know. First, we think the U.S. is in a period of tactical escalation for tariff policy; where tariffs rise as the U.S. explores its negotiating space, but levels remain in a range below what many investors feared earlier this year. We started this week expecting a slight increase in U.S. tariffs—nothing too dramatic, maybe from 13 percent to around 15 percent driven by hikes in places like Vietnam and Japan. But what we got was a bit more substantial. The U.S. announced several tariff hikes, set to take effect later, allowing time for negotiations. If these new measures go through, tariffs could reach 15 to 20 percent, significantly higher than at the beginning of the year, though far below the 25 to 30 percent levels that appeared possible back in April. It’s a good reminder that U.S. trade policy remains a moving target because the U.S. administration is still focused on reducing goods trade deficits and may not yet perceive there to be substantial political and economic risk of tariff escalation. Per our economists’ recent work on the lagged effects of tariffs, this reckoning could be months away. Second, the implications of this tactical escalation are consistent with our current cross-asset views. The higher tariffs announced on a variety of geographies, and products like copper, put further pressure on the U.S. growth story, even if they don’t tip the U.S. into recession, per the work done by our economists. That growth pressure is consistent with our views that both government and corporate bond yields will move lower, driving solid returns. It's also insufficient pressure to get in the way of an equity market rally, in the view of our U.S. equity strategy team. The fiscal package that just passed Congress might not be a major boon to the economy overall, but it does help margins for large cap companies, who by the way are more exposed to tariffs through China, Canada, Mexico, and the EU – rather than the countries on whom tariff increases were announced this week. Finally, How could we be wrong? Well, pay attention to negotiations with those geographies we just mentioned: Mexico, Canada, Europe, and China. These are much bigger trading partners not just for U.S. companies, but the U.S. overall.  So meaningful escalation here can drive both top line and bottom line effects that could challenge equities and credit.  In our view, tariffs with these partners are likely to land near current levels, but the path to get there could be volatile.  For the U.S., Mexico and Canada, background reporting suggests there’s mutual interest in maintaining a low tariff bloc, including exceptions for the product-specific tariffs that the U.S. is imposing. But there are sticking points around harmonizing trade policy. The dynamic is similar with China. Tariffs are already steep—among the highest anywhere. While a recent narrow deal—around semiconductors for rare earths—led to a temporary reduction from triple-digit levels, the two sides remain far apart on fundamental issues.  So when it comes to negotiations with the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, there’s sticking points. And where there’s sticking points there’s potential for escalation that we’ll need to be vigilant in monitoring. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market please leave us a review. And tell your friends about the podcast. We want everyone to listen.

Our Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Serena Tang discusses whether demand for U.S. stocks has fallen and where fund flows are surging. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Serena Tang: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist.Today – is the demand for U.S. assets declining? Let's look at the recent trends in global investment flows.It’s Wednesday, July 9th at 1pm in New York.The U.S. equity market has reached an all-time high, but at the same time lingering uncertainty about U.S. trade and tariff policies is forcing global investors to consider the riskiness of U.S. assets. And so the big question we need to ask is: are investors – particularly foreign investors – fleeing U.S. assets?This question comes from recent data around fund flows to global equities. And we have to acknowledge that demand for U.S. stocks overall has declined, going by high-frequency data. But at the same time, we think this idea is exaggerated. So why is that? As many listeners know, fund flows – which represent the net movement of money into and out of various investment vehicles like mutual funds and ETFs – are an important gauge of investor sentiment and market trends. So what are fund flows really telling us about investors’ sentiment towards U.S. equities? It would be nice to get an unequivocal answer, but of course, the devil is always in the details. And the problem is that different data sources and frequencies across different market segments don’t always lead to the same conclusions. Weekly data across global equity ETF and mutual funds from Lipper show that international investors were net buyers through most of April and May. But the pace of buying has slowed year-to-date versus 2024. Still, it remains much higher than during the same period in 2021 through 2023. Treasury TIC data point to something similar – a slowdown in foreign demand, but not significant net selling. So where are the flows going, if not to the U.S.? They are going to the rest of the world, but more particularly, Europe. Europe stocks, in fact, have been the biggest beneficiary of decreasing flows to the U.S. Nearly $37 billion U.S. has gone into Europe-focused equity funds year-to-date. This is significantly higher than the run-rates over the prior five years. What’s more notable here is that year-to-date, flows to European-focused ETFs and mutual funds dominated those targeting Japan and Emerging Markets. This suggests that Europe is now the premier destination for equity fund flows, with very little demand spillovers to other regions' equity markets.These shifts have yet to show up in the allocation data, which tracks how global asset managers invest in stocks regionally. Global equity funds' portfolio weights to Rest-of-the-World has gone up by roughly the same amount as allocation to the U.S. has come down. But allocation to the U.S. has actually gone down by roughly the same amount, as its share in global equity indices; which means that If allocation to the U.S. has changed, it's simply because the U.S. is now a smaller part of equity indices. Meanwhile, an estimated U.S.$9 billion from Rest-of-the World went into international equity funds, which excludes U.S. stocks altogether. Granted, it’s not a lot; but scaled for fund assets, it's the highest net flows international equities have seen. In other words, some investors are choosing to invest in equities excluding U.S. altogether. These trends are unlikely to reverse as long as lingering policy uncertainty dampens demand for U.S.-based assets. But as we've argued in our mid-year outlook, there are very few alternative markets to the U.S. dollar markets right now. U.S. stocks might start to see less marginal flows from foreign investors – to the benefit of Rest-of-the-World equities, especially Europe. But demand is unlikely to dry up completely over the next 12 months. 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.

Arushi Agarwal from the European Sustainability Strategy team and Aerospace & Defense Analyst Ross Law unpack what a reshaped defense industry means for sustainability, ethics and long-term investment strategy.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Ross Law: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ross Law from Morgan Stanley's European Aerospace and Defense team.Arushi Agarwal: And I'm Arushi Agarwal from the European Sustainability Research Team.Ross Law: Today, a topic that's rapidly defining the boundaries of sustainable investing and technological leadership – the use of AI in defense.It's Tuesday, July 8th at 3pm in London. At the recent NATO summit, member countries decided to boost their core defense spending target from 2 percent to 3.5 percent of GDP. This big jump is sure to spark a wave of innovation in defense, particularly in AI and military technology. It's clear that Europe is focusing on rearmament with AI playing a major role. In fact, AI is revolutionizing everything from unmanned systems and cyber defense to simulation training and precision targeting. It’s changing the game for how nations prepare for – and engage in – conflict. And with all these changes come serious challenges. Investors, policy makers and technologists are facing some tough questions that sit at the intersection of two of Morgan Stanley's four key themes: The Multipolar World and Tech Diffusion.So, Arushi, to set the stage, how is the concept of sustainability evolving to include national security and defense, particularly in Europe?Arushi Agarwal: You know, Ross, it's fascinating to see how much this space has evolved over the past year. Geopolitical tensions have really pushed national security much higher on the sustainability agenda. We're seeing a structural shift in sentiment towards defense investments. While historically defense companies were largely excluded by sustainability funds, we're now seeing asset managers revisiting these exclusions, especially around conventional and nuclear weapons. Some are even launching thematic funds, specifically focused on security and resilience.However, in the absence of standard methodologies to assess weapon related exposures, evaluate sector-specific ESG risks and determine transparency, there is no clear consensus on what sustainability focused managers can hold. Greater policy focus has created the need to identify a long-term approach to investing in this sector, one that is cognizant of ethical issues. Investors are now increasingly asking whether rapid technological integration might allow for a more forward-looking, risk aware approach to investing in national security.Ross Law: So, it's no news that Europe has historically underspent on defense. Now, the spending goal is moving to 3.5 percent of GDP to try and catch up. Our estimates suggest this could mean an additional $200 billion per year in additional spend – with a focus on equipment over personnel, at least for the time being. With this new focus, how is AI shaping the European rearmament strategy?Arushi Agarwal: Well, AI appears to be at the core of EU’s 800 billion euro rearmament plan. The commission has been quite clear that escalating tensions have not only led to a new arms race but also provoked a global technological race. Now to think about it, AI, quantum, biotech, robotics, and hypersonic are key inputs not only for long-term economic growth, but also for military pre-eminence.In our base case, we estimate that total NATO military spend into AI applications will potentially more than double to $112 billion by 2030. This is at a 4 percent AI investment allocation rate. If this allocation rate increases to 10 percent as anticipated by European deep tech firms, then NATOs AI military spend could grow sixfold to $306 billion by 2030 in our bull case.So, Ross, you were at the Paris Air Show recently where companies demonstrated their latest product capabilities. Which AI applications are leading the way in defense right now? Ross Law: Yeah, it was really quite eye-opening. We've identified nine key AI applications, reshaping defense, and our Application Readiness Radar shows that Cybersecurity followed by Unmanned Systems exhibit the highest level of preparedness from a public and private investment perspective.Cybersecurity is a major priority due to increased proliferation of cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns, and this technology can be used for both defensive and offensive measures. Unmanned systems are also really taking off, no pun intended, mainly driven by the rise in drone warfare that's reshaping the battlefield in Ukraine.At the Paris Airshow, we saw demonstrations of “Wingman” crewed and uncrewed aircraft. There have also been several public and private partnerships in this area within our coverage. Another area gaining traction is simulation and war gaming. As defense spending increases and potentially leads to more military personnel, we see t

The American consumer isn’t simply pulling back. They are changing the way they spend – and save. Our U.S. Thematic and Equity Strategist Michelle Weaver digs into the data. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michelle Weaver: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Thematic and Equity Strategist.Today, the U.S. consumer. What's changing about the ways Americans spend, save and feel about the future?It's Monday, July 7th at 10am in London.As markets digest mixed signals – whether that's easing inflation, changing politics, and persistent noise around tariffs – U.S. consumers are recalibrating. Under the surface of headline numbers, a more complex story is unfolding about the ways Americans are not just reacting but adapting to macro challenges.First, I want to start with a big picture. Data from our latest consumer survey shows that consumer sentiment has stabilized, even as uncertainty around tariffs persists, especially into these rolling July deadlines. Inflation remains the top concern for most. But the good news is that it's trending lower. This month more than half of respondents cited inflation as their primary concern, a slight decrease from last month and a year ago. Now, that's a subtle but a meaningful decline suggesting consumers may be adjusting their expectations rather than bracing for continued price shocks. At the same time though political concerns are on the rise. More than 40 percent of consumers now list the U.S. political environment as a major worry. That's slightly up from last month; and not surprisingly concern around geopolitical conflicts has also jumped from a month ago.Now, when we break this down by income levels, we see some interesting trends. Inflation is the top concern across all income groups, except for those earning more than $150,000. For them, politics takes the top spot. Lower income households, though, are more focused on paying rent and debts, while higher income groups are more concerned about their investments.As for tariffs, concern remains high but stable. About 40 percent of consumers are very worried about tariffs and another 25 percent are moderately so. But if we look under the surface, it's really showing us a political divide. 63 percent of liberals are very concerned, compared to just 23 percent of conservatives who say they're very concerned.Despite these worries, though, fewer people overall are planning to cut back on spending. Only about a third say they'll spend less due to tariffs, which is down quite a bit from earlier this year. Meanwhile, about a quarter plan to spend more, and roughly a third don't expect to change their plans at all.This resilience points to the notable behavioral trend I mentioned at the start. Consumers are not just reacting, they're adapting. Looking at the broader economy, consumer confidence is holding steady according to our survey, although it's slightly down from last month. But when it comes to household finances, the outlook is more positive with a significant number expecting their finances to improve and fewer expecting them to worsen – a net positive.Savings are also showing some resilience. The average consumer has several months of savings, slightly up from last year. Spending intentions are stable with nearly a third of consumers planning to spend more next month while fewer planned to spend less. And when it comes to big ticket items, more than half of U.S. consumers are planning a major purchase in the next three months, including vehicles, appliances, and vacations.Speaking of vacations, summer travel season is here and I'm looking forward to taking a trip soon. Around 60 percent of consumers are planning to travel in the next six months, with visiting friends and family being the top reason.So, what's the biggest takeaway for investors?Despite ongoing concerns about inflation, politics and tariffs, U.S. consumers are showing remarkable resilience. It's a nuanced picture, but one that overall suggests stability in the face of uncertainty.Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show, and if you did, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today. 

For a special Independence Day episode, our Head of Corporate Credit Research considers a popular topic of debate, on holidays or otherwise – national debt.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Today on a special Independence Day episode of the podcast, we're going to talk a bit about the history of U.S. debt and the contrast between corporate and federal debt trajectories.It's Thursday, July 3rd at 9am in Seattle.The 4th of July, which represents the U.S. declaring independence from Great Britain, remains one of my favorite holidays. A time to gather with friends and family and celebrate what America is – and what it can still be.It is also, of course, a good excuse to talk about debt.Declaring independence is one thing, but fighting and beating the largest empire in the world at the time would take more than poetic words. The borrowing that made victory possible for the colonies also almost brought them down in the 1780s under a pile of unsustainable debt. It was a young treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, who successfully lobbied to bring these debts under a federal umbrella – binding the nation together and securing a lower borrowing cost. As we'd say, it's a real fixed income win-win.Almost 250 years later, the benefits of that foresight are still going strong, with the United States of America enjoying the world's largest economy, and the largest and most liquid equity and bond markets. Yet lately there's been more focus on whether those bond markets are, well, too large.The U.S. currently runs a budget deficit of about 7 percent of GDP, and the current budget proposals in the house and the Senate could drive an additional 4 trillion of borrowing over the next decade above that already hefty baseline. Forecast even further out, well, they look even more challenging.We are not worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay its bills. And to be clear, in the near term, we are forecasting at Morgan Stanley, U.S. government yields to go down as growth slows and the Federal Reserve cuts rates more than expected in 2026. But all of this borrowing and all the uncertainty around it – it should increase risk premiums for longer term bonds and drive a steeper yield curve.So, it's notable then – as we celebrate America's birthday and discuss its borrowing – that it's really companies that are currently unwrapping the presents. Corporate balance sheets, in contrast, are in very good shape, as corporate borrowing trends have diverged from those of the government.Many factors are behind this. Corporate profitability is strong. Companies use the post-COVID period to refinance debt at attractive rates. And the ongoing uncertainty – well, it's kept management more conservative than they would otherwise be. Out of deference to the 4th of July, I've focused so far on the United States. But we see the same trend in Europe, where more conservative balance sheet trends and less relative issuance to governments is showing up on a year-over-year basis. With companies borrowing relatively less and governments borrowing relatively more, the difference between what companies and the government pay, that so-called spread that we talk so much about – well, we think it can stay lower and more compressed than it otherwise would.We don't think this necessarily applies to the low ratings such as single B or lower borrowers, where these better balance sheet trends simply aren't as clear. But overall, a divergent trend between corporate and government balance sheets is giving corporate bond investors something additional to celebrate over the weekend.Thank you as always for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen, and also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Our analysts Michael Zezas and Ariana Salvatore discuss the upcoming expiration of reciprocal tariffs and the potential impacts for U.S. trade.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy.Ariana Salvatore: And I'm Ariana Salvatore, US Public Policy Strategist.Michael Zezas: Today we're talking about the outlook for US trade policy. It's Wednesday, July 2nd at 10:00 AM in New York.We have a big week ahead as next Wednesday marks the expiration of the 90 day pause on reciprocal tariffs. Ariana, what's the setup?Ariana Salvatore: So this is a really key inflection point. That pause that you mentioned was initiated back on April 9th, and unless it's extended, we could see a reposition of tariffs on several of our major trading partners. Our base case is that the administration, broadly speaking, tries to kick the can down the road, meaning that it extends the pause for most countries, though the reality might be closer to a few countries seeing their rates go up while others announce bilateral framework deals between now and next week.But before we get into the key assumptions underlying our base case. Let's talk about the bigger picture. Michael, what do we think the administration is actually trying to accomplish here?Michael Zezas: So when it comes to defining their objectives, we think multiple things can be true at the same time. So the administration's talked about the virtue of tariffs as a negotiating tactic. They've also floated the idea of a tiered framework for global trading partners. Think of it as a ranking system based on trade deficits, non tariff barriers, VAT levels, and any other characteristics that they think are important for the bilateral trade relationship. A lot of this is similar to the rhetoric we saw ahead of the April 2nd "Liberation Day" tariffs.Ariana Salvatore: Right, and around that time we started hearing about the potential, at least for bilateral trade deals, but have we seen any real progress in that area?Michael Zezas: Not much, at least not publicly, aside from the UK framework agreement. And here's an important detail, three of our four largest trading partners aren't even scoped for higher rates next week. Mexico and Canada were never subject to the reciprocal tariffs. And China's on a separate track with this Geneva framework that doesn't expire until August 12th. So we're not expecting a sweeping overhaul by Wednesday.Ariana Salvatore: Got it. So what are the scenarios that we're watching?Michael Zezas: So there's roughly three that we're looking at and let me break them down here.So our base case is that the administration extends the current pause, citing progress in bilateral talks, and maybe there's a few exceptions along the way in either direction, some higher and some lower. This broadly resets the countdown clock, but keeps the current tariff structure intact: 10% baseline for most trading partners, though some potentially higher if negotiations don't progress in the next week. That outcome would be most in line, we think, with the current messaging coming out of the administration.There's also a more aggressive path if there's no visible progress. For example, the administration could reimpose tariffs with staggered implementation dates. The EU might face a tougher stance due to the complexity of that relationship and Vietnam could see delayed threats as a negotiating tactic. A strong macro backdrop, resilient data for markets that could all give the administration cover to go this route.But there's also a more constructive outcome. The administration can announce regional or bilateral frameworks, not necessarily full trade deals, but enough to remove the near term threat of higher tariffs, reducing uncertainty, though maybe not to pre-2024 levels.Ariana Salvatore: So wide bands of uncertainty, and it sounds like the more constructive outcome is quite similar to our base case, which is what we have in place right now. But translating that more aggressive path into what that means for the economy, we think it would reinforce our house view that the risks here are skewed to the downside.Our economists estimate that tariffs begin to impact inflation about four months after implementation with the growth effects lagging by about eight months. That sets us up for weak but not quite recessionary growth. We're talking 1% GDP on an annual basis in 2025 and 2026, and the tariff passed through to prices and inflation data probably starting in August.Michael Zezas: So bottom line, watch carefully on Wednesday and be vigilant for changes to the status quo on tariff levels. There's a lot of optionality in how this plays out, as trade policy uncertainty in the aggregate is still high. Ariana, thanks for taking the time to talk.Ariana Salvatore: Great speaking

Ron Kamdem, our U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts & Commercial Real Estate Analyst, discusses how GenAI could save the real estate industry $34 billion and where the savings are most likely to be found.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Ron Kamdem, Head of Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts and Commercial Real Estate research. Today I’ll talk about the ways GenAI is disrupting the real estate industry.It’s Tuesday, July 1st, at 10am in New York.What if the future of real estate isn’t about location, location, location – but automation, automation, automation?While it may be too soon to say exactly how AI will affect demand for real estate, what we can say is that it is transforming the business of real estate, namely by making operations more efficient. If you’re a customer dealing with a real estate company, you can now expect to interact with virtual leasing assistants. And when it comes to drafting your lease documents, AI can help you do this in minutes rather than hours – or even days.In fact, our recent work suggests that GenAI could automate nearly 40 percent of tasks across half a million occupations in the real estate investment trusts industry – or REITs. Indeed, across 162 public REITs and commercial real estate services companies or CRE with $92 billion of total labor costs, the financial impact may be $34 billion, or over 15 percent of operating cash flow. Our proprietary job posting database suggests the top four occupations with automation potential are management – so think about middle management – sales, office and administrative support, and installation maintenance and repairs.Certain sub-sectors within REITs and CRE services stand to gain more than others. For instance, lodging and resorts, along with brokers and services, and healthcare REITs could see more than 15 percent improvement in operating cash flow due to labor automation. On the other hand, sectors like gaming, triple net, self-storage, malls, even shopping centers might see less than a 5 percent benefit, which suggests a varied impact across the industry.Brokers and services, in particular, show the highest potential for automation gains, with nearly 34 percent increase in operating cash flow. These companies may be the furthest along in adopting GenAI tools at scale. In our view, they should benefit not only from the labor cost savings but also from enhanced revenue opportunities through productivity improvement and data center transactions facilitated by GenAI tools.Lodging and resorts have the second highest potential upside from automating occupations, with an estimated 23 percent boost in operating cash flow. The integration of AI in these businesses not only streamline operations but also opens new avenues for return on investments, and mergers and acquisitions.Some companies are already using AI in their operations. For example, some self-storage companies have integrated AI into their digital platforms, where 85 percent of customer interactions now occur through self-selected digital options. As a result, they have reduced on-property labor hours by about 30 percent through AI-powered staffing optimization. Similarly, some apartment companies have reduced their full-time staff by about 15 percent since 2021 through AI-driven customer interactions and operational efficiencies.Meanwhile, this increased application of AI is driving new revenue to AI-enablers. Businesses like data centers, specialty, CRE services could see significant upside from the infrastructure buildout from GenAI. Advanced revenue management systems, customer acquisition tools, predictive analytics are just a few areas where GenAI can add value, potentially enhancing the $290 billion of revenue stream in the REIT and CRE services space.However, the broader economic impact of GenAI on labor markets remains hotly debated. Job growth is the key driver of real estate demand and the impact of AI on the 164 million jobs in the U.S. economy remains to be determined. If significant job losses materialize and the labor force shrinks, then the real estate industry may face top-line pressure with potentially disproportionate impact on office and lodging. While AI-related job losses are legitimate concerns, our economists argue that the productivity effects of GenAI could ultimately lead to net positive job growth, albeit with a significant need for re-skilling.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.

The U.S. housing market appears to be stuck. Our co-heads of Securitized Product research, Jay Bacow and James Egan, explain how supply and demand, as well as mortgage rates, play a role in the cooling market.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----James Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley.Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. And after getting through last week's blistering hot temperatures, today we're going to talk about what may be a cooling housing market. It's Monday, June 30th at 2:30pm in New York. Now, Jim, home prices. We just got another index. They set another record high, but the pace of growth – the acceleration as a physicist in me wants to say – appears to be slowing. What's going on here?James Egan: The pace of home price growth reported this month was 2.7 percent. That is the lowest that it's been since August of 2023. And in our view, the reason's pretty simple. Supply is increasing, while demand has stalled.Jay Bacow: But Jim, this was a report for the spring selling season. I know we got it in June, but this is supposed to be the busiest time of the year. People are happy to go around. They're looking at moving over the summer when the kids aren't in school. We should be expecting the supply to increase. Are you saying that it's happening more than it's anticipated?James Egan: That is what we're saying. Now, we should be expecting inventories today to be higher than they were in, call it January or February. That's exactly the seasonality that you're referring to. But it's the year-over-year growth we're paying attention to here. Homes listed for sale are up year-over-year, 18 months in a row. And that pace, it's been accelerating. Over the past 40 years, the pace of growth from this past month was only eclipsed one time, the Great Financial Crisis.Jay Bacow: [sighs] I always get a little worried when the housing analyst brings up the Great Financial Crisis. Are you saying that this time the demand isn't responding?James Egan: That is what we're saying. So, through the first five months of this year, existing home sales are only down about 2 percent versus the first five months of 2024. So they've basically kind of plateaued at these levels. But that also means that we're seeing the fewest number of transactions through May in a calendar year since 2009. And that combination of easing inventory and lackluster demand, it's pushed months of supply back to levels that we haven't seen since the beginning of this pandemic. Call it the fourth quarter of 2019, first quarter of 2020, right before inventory has really plummeted to historic lows.Jay Bacow: All right, so 2009, another financial crisis reference. But you're also – you're speaking around a national level, and as a housing analyst, I feel like you haven't really spoken about the three most important factors when we think about things which are: Location. Location. And location.James Egan: Absolutely. And the deceleration that we're seeing in home price growth – and I would point out it is still growth – has been pervasive across the country. Year-over-year, HPA is now decelerating in 100 percent of the top 100 MSAs, for which we have data. In fact, a full quarter of them, 25 percent of these cities are now actually seeing prices decline on a year-over-year basis. And that's up from just 5 percent with declining home prices one year ago.Jay Bacow: As a homeowner, I do like the home price growth. And is it the same story when you look more narrowly around supply and demand?James Egan: So, there might be some geographical nuances, but we do think that it largely boils down to that. Local inventory growth has been a very good indicator of weaker home price performance, particularly the level of for-sale inventory today versus that fourth quarter of 2019. If we look at it on a geographic basis, of 14 MSAs that have the highest level of inventory today compared to 2019, 11 of them are in either Florida or Texas. On the other end of the spectrum, the cities where inventory remains furthest away from where it was four and a half years ago, they're in the Northeast, they're in the Midwest.Jay Bacow: As somebody who lives in the Northeast, I'd like to hear that again. But you're also; you're quoting existing prices, which that's been the outperformer in the housing market. Right?James Egan: Exactly. New home prices have actually been decreasing year-over-year for the past year and a half at this point. It's actually brought the basis between new home prices, which tend to trade at a little bit of a premium to existing sales; it's brought that basis to its tightest level that we've seen in at least 30 years. And that's before we take into account the fact that home builders have been buying down some of

Stock tickers may not immediately price in uncertainty during times of geopolitical volatility. Our Head of Corporate Credit Research Andrew Sheets suggests a different indicator to watch.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Today I'm going to talk about how we're trying to simplify the complicated questions of recent geopolitical events.It's Friday, June 27th at 2pm in London.Recent U.S. airstrikes against Iran and the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel have dominated the headlines. The situation is complicated, uncertain, and ever changing. From the time that this episode is recorded to when you listen to it, conditions may very well have changed again.Geopolitical events such as this one often have a serious human, social and financial cost, but they do not consistently have an impact on markets. As analysis by my colleague, Michael Wilson and his team have shown, over a number of key geopolitical events over the last 30 years, the impact on the S&P 500 has often been either fleeting or somewhat non-existent. Other factors, in short, dominate markets.So how to deal with this conundrum? How to take current events seriously while respecting that historical precedent that they often can have more limited market impact? How to make a forecast when quite simply few investors feel like they have an edge in predicting where these events will go next?In our view, the best way to simplify the market's response is to watch oil prices. Oil remains an important input to the world economy, where changes in price are felt quickly by businesses and consumers.So when we look back at past geopolitical events that did move markets in a more sustained way, a large increase in oil prices often meaning a rise of more than 75 percent year-over-year was often part of the story. Such a rise in such an important economic input in such a short period of time increases the risk of recession; something that credit markets and many other markets need to care about. So how can we apply this today?Well, for all the seriousness and severity of the current conflict, oil prices are actually down about 20 percent relative to a year ago. This simply puts current conditions in a very different category than those other periods be they the 1970s or more recently, Russia's invasion of Ukraine that represented genuine oil price shocks. Why is oil down? Well, as my colleague Martin Rats referred to on an earlier episode of this program, oil markets do have very healthy levels of supply, which is helping to cushion these shocks.With oil prices actually lower than a year ago, we think the credit will focus on other things. To the positive, we see an alignment of a few short-term positive factors, specifically a pretty good balance of supply and demand in the credit market, low realized volatility, and a historically good window in the very near term for performance. Indeed, over the last 15 years, July has represented the best month of the year for returns in both investment grade and high yield credit in both the U.S. and in Europe.And what could disrupt this? Well, a significant spike in oil prices could be one culprit, but we think a more likely catalyst is a shift of those favorable conditions, which could happen from August and beyond. From here, Morgan Stanley economists’ forecasts see a worsening mix of growth in inflation in the U.S., while seasonal return patterns to flip from good to bad.In the meantime, however, we will keep watching oil.Thank you as always for your time. If you find Thoughts the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen, and also tell a friend or colleague about us today. 

Our Global Head of Macro Strategy Matt Hornbach and U.S. Economist Michael Gapen assess the Fed’s path forward in light of inflation and a weaker economy, and the likely market outcomes.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Matt Hornbach: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Matthew Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy. Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist. Matt Hornbach: Today we're discussing the outcome of the June Federal Open Market Committee meeting and our expectations for rates, inflation, and the U.S. dollar from here. It's Thursday, June 26th at 10am in New York. Matt Hornbach: Mike, the Federal Reserve decided to hold the federal funds rate steady, remaining within its target range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent. It still anticipates two rate cuts by the end of 2025; but participants adjusted their projections further out suggesting fewer cuts in 2026 and 2027. You, on the other hand, continue to think the Fed will stay on hold for the rest of this year, with a lot of cuts to follow in 2026. What specifically is behind your view, and are there any underappreciated dynamics here? Michael Gapen: So, we've been highlighting three reasons why we think the Fed will cut late but cut more. The first is tariffs introduce differential timing effects on the economy. They tend to push inflation higher in the near term and they weaken consumer spending with a lag. If tariffs act as a tax on consumption, that tax is applied by pushing prices higher – and then only subsequently do consumers spend less because they have less real income to spend. So, we think the Fed will be seeing more inflation first before it sees the weaker labor market later. The second part of our story is immigration. Immigration controls mean it's likely to be much harder to push the unemployment rate higher. That's because when we go from about 3 million immigrants per year down to about 300,000 – that means much lower growth in the labor force. So even if the economy does slow and labor demand moderates, the unemployment rate is likely to remain low. So again, that's similar to the tariff story where the Fed's likely to see more inflation now before it sees a weaker labor market later. And third, we don't really expect a big impulse from fiscal policy. The bill that's passed the house and is sitting in the Senate, we’ll see where that ultimately ends up. But the details that we have in hand today about those bills don't lead us to believe that we'll have a big impulse or a big boost to growth from fiscal policy next year. So, in total the Fed will see a lot of inflation in the near term and a weaker economy as we move into 2026. So, the Fed will be waiting to ensure that that inflation impulse is indeed transitory, but a Fed that cuts late will ultimately end up cutting more. So we don't have rate hikes this year, Matt, as you noted. But we do have 175 basis points in rate cuts next year. Matt Hornbach: So, Mike, looking through the transcript of the press conference, the word tariffs was used almost 30 times. What does the Fed's messaging say to you about its expectations around tariffs? Michael Gapen: Yeah, so it does look like in this meeting, participants did take a stand that tariffs were going to be higher, and they likely proceeded under the assumption of about a 14 percent effective tariff rate. So, I think you can see three imprints that tariffs have on their forecast.First, they're saying that inflation moves higher, and in the press conference Powell said explicitly that the Fed thinks inflation will be moving higher over the summer months. And they revised their headline and core PCE forecast higher to about 3 percent and 3.1 percent – significant upward revisions from where they had things earlier in the year in March before tariffs became clear. The second component here is the Fed thinks any inflation story will be transitory. Famous last words, of course. But the Fed forecast that inflation will fall back towards the 2 percent target in 2026 and 2027; so near-term impulse that fades over time. And third, the Fed sees tariffs as slowing economic growth. The Fed revised lower its outlook for growth in real GDP this year. So, in some [way], by incorporating tariffs and putting such a significant imprint on the forecast, the Fed's outlook has actually moved more in the direction of our own forecast. Matt Hornbach: I'd like to stay on the topic of geopolitics. In contrast to the word tariffs, the words Middle East only was mentioned three times during the press conference. With the weekend events there, investor concerns are growing about a spike in oil prices. How do you think the Fed will think about any supply-driven rise in energy, commodity prices here? Michael Gapen: Yeah, I think the Fed will view this as another element that sugge

Our Australia Materials Analyst Rahul Anand discusses why critical minerals may be the Achilles’ heel of humanoids as demand significantly outpaces supply amid geopolitical uncertainties.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Rahul Anand: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Rahul Anand, Head of Morgan Stanley’s Australia Materials Research team.Today, I'll dig deeper into one of the vital necessities for the development of robotics – critical minerals – and why they're so vital to be front of mind for the Western world today. It's Wednesday, June 25th at 8am in Sydney, Australia. Humanoid robots will soon become an integral part of our daily lives. A few weeks ago, you heard my colleagues Adam Jonas and Sheng Zhong discuss how humanoids are going to transform the economy and markets. Morgan Stanley Research expects this market to reach more than a billion units by 2050 and generate almost [$] 5 trillion in annual revenue. When we think about that market, and we think about what it could do for critical minerals demand, that could skyrocket. And the key areas of critical minerals demand would basically be focused on rare earths, lithium and graphite. Each one of these complex machines is going to require about a kilo of rare earths, 2 kgs of lithium, 6.5 kgs kilos of copper, 1.5 kgs of nickel, 3 kgs of graphite, and about 200 grams of cobalt. Importantly, this market from a cumulative standpoint by the year 2050, could be to the tune of about $800 billion U.S., which is staggering.And beyond that market size of $800 billion U.S., I think it's important to drill a bit deeper – because if we now consider how these markets are dominated currently, comes the China angle. And China currently dominates 88 percent of rare earth supply, 93 percent of graphite supply and 75 percent of refined lithium supply. China recently placed controls on seven heavy rare earths and permanent magnet exports in response to tariff announcements that were made by the U.S., and a comprehensive deal there is still awaited. It's very important that we have to think about diversification today, not just because these critical minerals are so heavily dominated by China. But more importantly, if we think about how the supply chain comes about, it's now taking circa 18 years to get a new mine online, and that's the statistic for the past five years of mines that came online. That number is up nearly 50 percent from last decade, and that's been driven basically by very long approval processes now in the Western world, alongside very long exploration times that are required to get some of these mines up and running. On top of that, when we think about the supply demand balance, by 2040 we're expecting that the NdPr, or the rare earth, market would be in a 26 percent deficit. Lithium could be in a deficit close to 80 percent. So, it's not just about supply security. It's also about how long it will take to bring these mines on. And on top of that, how big the amount of supply that's required is really going to be. I know when you think about 2040, it sounds very long dated, but it's important to understand that we have to act now. And in this humanoid piece of research that we have done as the global materials team, which was led by the Australian materials team, we basically have provided 34 global stocks to play this thematic in the rare earths, lithium and rare earth magnet space. It's also very important to remember and keep front of mind that as part of the London negotiations that happened between U.S. and China, no agreement was reached on critical military use rare earth magnets and exports. Now that's an important point because that's going to play as a key point of leverage in any future trade deal that comes about between the two countries. This remains an evolving situation, and this is something that we are going to continue monitoring and will bring you the latest on as time progresses.Look, thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review and share thoughts on the market with a friend or colleague today.

Morgan Stanley’s Chief Asia Equity Strategist Jonathan Garner explains why Indian equities are our most preferred market in Asia.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Jonathan Garner, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Asia Equity Strategist. Today I’ll discuss why we remain positive on India’s long-term equity story.It’s Tuesday, the 24th of June at 9am in Singapore.We’ve had a long-standing bullish outlook on the India economy and its stock market. In the last five years MSCI India has delivered a total return in U.S. dollars of 145 percent versus 94 percent for global equities and just 39 percent for emerging markets. Indian equities are our most preferred market within Asia for three key reasons. First, India’s superior economic and earnings growth. Second, lower exposure to trade tariffs. And third, a strong domestic investor base. And all of this adds up to structural outperformance not just in Asia but indeed globally, and with significantly lower volatility than peer group markets. So let’s dive deeper. To start with – the macroeconomic backdrop. We expect India to account for 20 percent of overall incremental global GDP growth in the coming decade. Manufacturing competitiveness is improving thanks to bolstered infrastructure in power, ports, roads, freight transport systems as well as investments in social infrastructure such as water, sewage and hospitals. Additionally, India's growing middle class offers market opportunities to companies across many product categories. There’s robust domestic consumption, a strong investment cycle led by public and private capital expenditure and continuing structural reforms, including in the legal sphere. GDP growth in the first quarter was more than 7 percent and our team expects over 6 percent in the medium term, which would be by far the highest of the major economies. Furthermore, we continue to expect robust corporate earnings growth. Since the end of COVID, MSCI India has delivered around 12 percent per annum [U.S.] dollar earnings per share growth versus low single digits for Emerging Markets overall. And we forecast 14 percent and 16 percent over the next two fiscal years. Growth drivers in the short term include an emerging private CapEx cycle, re-leveraging of corporate balance sheets, and a structural rise in discretionary consumption – signaling increased business and consumer confidence, after last year’s elections. Another key reason that we’re positive on India currently is its lower-than-average vulnerability to ongoing trade and tariff disputes between the U.S. and its trade partners. Exports of goods to the U.S. amount to only 2 percent of India’s GDP versus, for example, 10 percent in Thailand or 14 percent in Taiwan. And India’s total goods exports are only around 12 percent of GDP. Moreover, for the time being, India’s very large services sector’s exports are not exposed to tariff actions, and are actually early beneficiaries of AI adoption. Finally, India’s strong individual stock ownership means that there’s persistent retail buying, which underpins the equity market. Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) flows driven by a young urbanizing population are making new highs, and in May amounted to over U.S.$3 billion. They provide consistent capital inflows. That means that this domestic bid on stocks is unlikely to fade anytime soon. This provides a strong foundation for the market and supports valuations which are slightly above emerging market averages. It also means that its market beta to global equities are low and falling, approximately 0.4 versus 1.1 ten years ago. And price volatility is well below other emerging markets. All told, making India an attractive play in volatile times. 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 CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains why investors have largely remained calm amid recent developments in the Middle East.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing how to think about the tensions in the Middle East for U.S. equities.  It's Monday, June 23rd at 11:30am in New York.  So, let’s get after it.  Over the weekend, the United States executed a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. While the extent of the damage has yet to be confirmed, President Trump has indicated Iran’s nuclear weapon development efforts have been diminished substantially, if not fully. If true, then this could be viewed as a peak rate of change for this risk. In many ways this fits our overall narrative for U.S. equities that we have likely passed the worst for many risks that were weighing on stocks in the first quarter of the year. Things like immigration enforcement, fiscal spending cuts, tariffs and AI CapEx deceleration all contributed to dragging down earnings forecasts.  Fast forward to today and all of these items have peaked in terms of their negative impact, and earnings forecasts have rebounded since Mid-April. In fact, the rebound in earnings revision breadth is one of the sharpest on record and provides a fundamental reason for why U.S. stocks have been so strong since bottoming the week of April 7th. Add in the events of this past weekend and it makes sense why equities are not selling off this morning as many might have expected.  For further context, we looked at 23 major geopolitical events since 1950 and the impact on stock prices. What we found may surprise listeners, but it is a well understood fact by seasoned investors. Geopolitical shocks are typically followed by higher, not lower equity prices, especially over 6 to12 months. Only five of the 23 outcomes were negative. And importantly, all the negative outcomes were accompanied by oil prices that were at least 75 percent higher on a year-over-year basis. As of this morning, oil prices are down 10 percent year-over-year and this is after the actions over the weekend. In other words, the conditions are not in place for lower equity prices on a 6 to12 month horizon.  Having said that, we continue to recommend large cap higher quality equities rather than small cap lower quality names. This is mostly a function of sticky long term interest rates and the fact that we remain in a late cycle environment in which the Fed is on hold. Should that change and the Fed begin to signal rate cuts, we would pivot to a more cyclical areas of the market.  Our favorite sectors remain Industrials which are geared to higher capital spending for power and infrastructure, Financials which will benefit from deregulation this fall and software stocks that remain immune from tariffs and levered to the next area of spending for AI diffusion across the economy. We also like Energy over consumer discretionary as a hedge against the risk of higher oil prices in the near term.  Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found today's episode informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review; and if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Our analysts Andrew Sheets and Kelvin Pang explain why international issuers may be interested in so-called ‘dim sum’ bonds, despite Asia’s growth drag.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Kelvin Pang: And I'm Kelvin Pang, Head of Asia Credit Strategy. Andrew Sheets: And today in the program we're going to finish our global tour of credit markets with a discussion of Asia. It's Friday, June 20th at 2pm in London. Kelvin Pang: And 9pm in Hong Kong. Andrew Sheets: Kelvin, thank you for joining us. Thank you especially for joining us so late in your day – to complete this credit World tour. And before we get into the Asia credit market, I think it would just be helpful to frame at a very high level – how you see the economic picture in the region. Kelvin Pang: We do think that the talks and potential deals will probably provide some reprieve towards the growth for the region, but not a big relief. We do think that tariff uncertainty will linger here, and it will keep growth low here; especially if we do think that CapEx of the region will be weaker due to tariff uncertainty. A weaker U.S. dollar, for example, plus monetary easing will help offset some of this growth drag. But overall, we do think that the Asia region could see 90 basis point down in real GDP growth from last year. Andrew Sheets: So, we've got weaker growth in Asia as a function of high tariffs and high tariff uncertainty that can't be offset by further policy easing. In the context of that weaker growth backdrop, higher uncertainty – are credit spreads in the region wide? Kelvin Pang: No, they're actually really low. They're probably at like the lowest since we start having a data in 2013. So definitely like a 12 to 13 year low of the range. Andrew Sheets: And so why is that? Why do you have this kind of seemingly odd disconnect between some real growth challenges? And as you just mentioned, really some of the tightest credit spreads, some of the lowest risk premiums that we've seen in quite some time? Kelvin Pang: Yeah, we get this question a lot from clients, and the short answer is that, you know, the technicals, right? Because the last two years, two-three years, we've been seeing negative net supply for Asia credit. A lot of that is driven by China credit. And if you look at year-to-date, non supply remain still negative net supply. And demand side, for example, has not really picked up that strongly. But it still offsets any outflows that we see the last two-three years; is offset by this negative net supply. So, you put this two together, we have this very strong technicals that support very tight spread. And that's why spread has been tight at historical end in the last, I would say, one to two years. Andrew Sheets: Do you see this changes? Kelvin Pang: Yeah, we do think it's changed. We have a framework that we call the normalization of Asia Credit technicals. And for that to change, essentially our framework is saying that Treasury yields use need to go down, and dollar funding need to go down. Cheaper dollar funding will bring back issuers. Net supply should pick up. Demand for credit tends to do well in a rate cut cycle. Demand tends to pick up in a rate cut cycle. So, if we have these two supports, we do think that Asia credit technicals will normalize. It's just that, you know, we have four stages of normalization. Unfortunately we are in stage two now, and we still have a bit of room to see some further normalization, especially if we don't get rate cuts. Andrew Sheets: Got it. So, you know, we do think that if Morgan Stanley's yield forecasts are correct, yields are going to fall. Issuers will look at those lower yields as more attractive. They'll issue more paper in Asia and that will kind of help rebalance the market some. But we're just not quite there yet. Kelvin Pang: Yeah, we feel like this road to rate cuts has been delayed a few times, in the last two-three years. And that has really been a big conundrum for a lot of Asia credit investors. So hopefully third time's a charm, right. So next year's a big year. Andrew Sheets: So, I guess while we're waiting for that, you also have this dynamic where for companies in Asia, or I guess for any company in the world, borrowing money locally in Asia is quite cheap. You have very low yields in China. You have very low local yields in Japan. How do those yields compare with the economics of borrowing in dollars? And what do you think that, kind of, means for your market? Kelvin Pang: Yeah, I think the short answer is that we are going to see more foreign issuers in local currency market. And, you know, we wrote a report in in March to just to pick on the dim sum

Our Global Commodities Strategist Martijn Rats explores three possible scenarios for oil prices in light of geopolitical shifts in the Middle East.Important note regarding economic sanctions. This research may reference jurisdiction(s) or person(s) which are the subject of sanctions administered or enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the United Kingdom, the European Union and/or by other countries and multi-national bodies. Any references in this report to jurisdictions, persons (individuals or entities), debt or equity instruments, or projects that may be covered by such sanctions are strictly incidental to general coverage of the relevant economic sector as germane to its overall financial outlook, and should not be read as recommending or advising as to any investment activities in relation to such jurisdictions, persons, instruments, or projects. Users of this report are solely responsible for ensuring that their investment activities are carried out in compliance with applicable sanctions.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Martijn Rats: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Martin Rats, Morgan Stanley's Global Commodity Strategist. Today I'll talk about oil price dynamics amidst escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. It's Wednesday, June 18th at 3pm in London. Industry watchers with an eye on the Brent Forward Curve recently noticed a rare smile shape: downward sloping in the first couple of months, but then an upward sloping curve later this year, and into 2026. Now that changed last Friday. The oil market creates these various shapes in the Forward Curve, depending on how it sees the supply demand balance. When the forward curve is downward sloping, holding inventory really is quite unattractive; so typically, operators release barrels from storage under those conditions. The market creates that structure when the conditions are tight, and barrels indeed need to be released from storage.Now on the other end, when the market is oversupplied, oil needs to be put into inventory, and the market makes this possible by creating an upward sloping curve. So, the curve that existed until only recently told the story of some near-term tightness first, but then a substantial surplus later this year and into 2026. Now when the tensions in the Middle East escalated late last week, the oil complex responded strongly. But not only did the front-month Brent future, i.e. oil for delivery next month rise quite sharply by about 17 percent, the impact of the conflict was also felt across all future delivery dates. By now, the entire forward curve is downward sloping, which means that the oil market no longer is pricing in any surplus next year – a big change from only a few days ago. Now, no doubt, Friday's events have sharply widened the range of possible future oil price paths. However, looking ahead, we would argue that oil prices fall in three main scenarios. Together they provide a framework to navigate the oil market in the next couple of weeks and months. First, let's consider the most benign scenario. Military conflict does not always correlate with disruptions to oil supply, even in major oil producing regions. So far, there is no reduction in supply from the region. If oil and gas infrastructure remains out of the crosshairs, it is entirely possible that that continues. In that case, we might see brand prices retract to around about $60 per barrel, down from the current level of about $76 per barrel.Our second scenario recognizes that Iran's oil exports could be at risk either because of attacks on physical infrastructure or because of sanctions – mirroring the reductions that we saw during 2018’s Maximum Pressure Campaign by the United States. If Iran were to lose most of its export capacity, that would broadly offset the surplus that we are currently modeling for the oil market next year, which would then in turn leave a broadly balanced market. Now in a balanced oil market, oil prices are probably in a $75 to $80 per barrel range. The third and most severe scenario encompasses a broad regional disruption, possibly pushing prices as high as 2022 levels of around $120 a barrel. Now, that could unfold if Iran targets oil infrastructure across the wider Gulf region, including critical routes like the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant portion of the world's oil transits. The situation remains very fluid, and we could see a wide spectrum of potential oil price outcomes. We believe the most likely scenario remains the first – our base case – with supply eventually remaining stable. However, the probabilities of the more severe disruptions whilst currently still lower, still justify a risk premium of about $10 per barrel for the foreseeable future. As we monitor these developments, investors should stay alert to signs such as further attacks on a

Our Senior Japan Economics Advisor discusses Japan’s systematic approach to AI and the lessons it offers for other markets.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Robert Feldman, Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities in Tokyo. Today I’d like to discuss Japan’s crucial contributions in global AI development.It’s Tuesday, June 17, at 2 PM in Tokyo.Japan has always been a world leader in advanced technology infrastructure and robotics. So it comes as no surprise that Japanese devices and materials play critical roles in the global AI supply chain. For investors, however, it's vital to understand Japan's unique systematic approach to AI and the lessons it offers other countries. In Japan, AI has historically developed through this symbiotic interaction of four elements: Hardware, Software, Data, and Ethics. Japanese technology advances not only evolve, but they co-evolve – meaning that advances in one element make advances in others more urgent. And when those latter advances occur, chokepoints arise in yet other elements. However, unlike co-evolution in nature, where chance mutations just happen to reinforce each other, co-evolution in AI is driven by human intent. That is, humans see a chokepoint and address it with innovation. These chokepoints – or bottlenecks in development – they’re crucial to the way we think about AI. Identifying the chokepoints allows firms and industries to innovate. And Investors should also pay particular attention to these chokepoints because that’s where the investment opportunities are. For example, at a recent event, we asked a medium-sized Japanese retail food manufacturing company president – who is an energetic AI advocate – which factor was the biggest chokepoint for his firm. And he replied unequivocally, immediately, “Data.” His firm has some data; so do his competitors. But there is no common protocol for recording the data, contributing information to a common database, and still maintaining anonymity. So clearly, the chokepoint around Data suggests that this company will need innovative data solutions so that it can then take advantage of the other three key elements: the Hardware, the Software, and the Ethics. Ethics is crucial because people won’t use AI unless there is an ethical basis. So in terms of this element – the ethics element – Japan's commitment to ethical AI development has been very flexible. On one hand, Japan has robust legal frameworks, like the Act for the Protection of Personal Information and subsequent amendments. These laws ensure that AI advances within a secure and ethical boundary. And the laws are not just on paper. They are actively enforced. A few years ago there was a landmark court ruling that upheld data privacy against unauthorized AI use. However, Japan also is flexible. The data rules are tweaked, to allow more practical approach to developing large language models. Another unique part of Japan’s approach to ethics is the proactive emphasis on AI literacy. From corporate giants to small businesses, there is a concerted effort to train personnel not just in the AI technology but also in the ethical application, and thus ensure this well-rounded acceptable advancement in AI capability. This approach to training workers is not just altruism; Japan faces a severe labor shortage, and AI is widely viewed as a critical part of the solution. So good ethics are bringing faster AI diffusion. Ultimately, on a global macroeconomic level, the winners from AI will be the corporations and the nations that do three things: First quickly introduce the technology; second, rapidly innovate new products and processes that use AI; and third, retrain labor and reallocate capital to produce these new and innovative products. With this macro backdrop, Japan’s intentional use of the symbiosis between Hardware, Software, Data, and Ethics gives Japan some unique advantages in accelerating AI diffusion and spurring economic growth. 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.

While market sentiment on U.S. large caps turns cautious, our Chief CIO and U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains why there's still room to stay constructive.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast, I’ll be discussing why we remain more constructive than the consensus on large cap U.S. equities – and which sectors in particular.   It's Monday, June 16th at 9:30am in New York.  So, let’s get after it.  We remain more constructive on U.S. equities than the consensus mainly because key gauges we follow are pointing to a stronger earnings backdrop than others expect over the next 12 months. First, our main earnings model is showing high-single-digit Earnings Per Share growth over the next year. Second, earnings revision breadth is inflecting sharply higher from -25 percent in mid-April to -9 percent today. Third, we have a secondary Earnings Leading model that takes into account the cost side of the equation; and that one is forecasting mid-teens Earnings Per Share growth by the first half of 2026. More specifically, it’s pointing to higher profitability due to cost efficiencies.  Interestingly, this was something we heard frequently last week at the Morgan Stanley Financials Conference with many companies highlighting the adoption of Artificial Intelligence to help streamline operations. Finally, the most underappreciated tailwind for S&P 500 earnings remains the weaker dollar which is down 11 percent from the January highs. As a reminder, our currency strategists expect another 7 percent downside over the next 12 months.  The combination of a stronger level of earnings revisions breadth and a robust rate of change on earnings revisions breadth since growth expectations troughed in mid-April is a powerful tailwind for many large cap stocks, with the strongest impact in the Capital Goods and Software industries.  These industries have compelling structural growth drivers. For Capital Goods, it’s tied to a renewed focus on global infrastructure spending. The rate of change on capacity utilization is in positive territory for the first time in two and a half years and aggregate commercial and industrial loans are growing again, reaching the highest level since 2020. The combination of structural tech diffusion and a global infrastructure focus in many countries is leading to a more capital intensive backdrop. Bonus depreciation in the U.S. should be another tailwind here – as it incentivizes a pickup in equipment investment, benefitting Capital Goods companies most directly. Meanwhile, Software is in a strong position to drive free cash flow via GenAI solutions from both a revenue and cost standpoint.  Another sector we favor is large cap financials which could start to see meaningful benefits of de-regulation in the second half of the year. The main risk to our more constructive view remains long term interest rates. While Wednesday's below consensus consumer price report was helpful in terms of keeping yields contained, we find it interesting that rates did not fall on Friday with the rise in geopolitical tensions. As a result, the 10-year yield remains in close distance of our key 4.5 percent level, above which rate sensitivity should increase for stocks. On the positive side, interest rate volatility is well off its highs in April and closer to multi-year lows.   Our long-standing Consumer Discretionary Goods underweight is based on tariff-related headwinds, weaker pricing power and a late cycle backdrop, which typically means underperformance of this sector. Staying underweight the group also provides a natural hedge should oil prices rise further amid rising tensions in the Middle East. We also continue to underweight small caps which are hurt the most from higher oil prices and sticky interest rates. These companies also suffer from a weaker dollar via higher costs and a limited currency translation benefit on the revenue side given their mostly domestic operations.   Finally, the concern that comes up most frequently in our client discussions is high valuations.  Our more sanguine view here is based on the fact that the rate of change on valuation is more important than the level. In our mid-year outlook, we showed that when Earnings Per Share growth is above the historical median of 7 percent, and the Fed Funds Rate is down on a year-over-year basis, the S&P 500's market multiple is up 90 percent of the time, regardless of the starting point. In fact, when these conditions are met, the S&P's forward P/E ratio has risen by 9 percent on average. Therefore, our forecast for the market multiple to stay n

Our economists Michael Gapen and Sam Coffin discuss how a drop in immigration is tightening labor markets, and what that means for the U.S. economic outlook and Fed policy. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Gapen: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Gapen, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist.Sam Coffin: And I'm Sam Coffin, Senior Economist on our U.S. Economics research team.Michael Gapen: Today we're going to have a discussion about the potential economic consequences of the administration’s shift in immigration policies. In particular, we’ll focus much of our attention on the influence that immigration reform is having on the U.S. labor market. And what it means for our outlook on Federal Reserve policy.It's Friday, June 13th at 9am in New York.So, Sam, news headlines have been dominated by developments in the President's immigration policies; what is being called by, at least some commentators, as a toughening in his stance.But I'd like to set the stage first with any new information that you think we've received on border encounters and interior removals. The administration has released new data on that recently that covered at least some of the activity earlier this year. What did it tell you? And did it differ markedly from your expectations?Sam Coffin: What we saw at first was border encounters falling sharply to 30,000 a month from 200,000 or 300,000 a month last year. It was perhaps a surprise that they fell that sharply. And on the flip side, interior removals turned out to be much more difficult than the administration had suggested. They'd been targeting maybe 500,000 per year in removals, 1500 a day. And we're hitting a third or a half of that pace.Michael Gapen: So maybe the recent escalation in ICE raids could be in response to this, right? The fact that interior removals have not been as large as some in the administration would desire.Sam Coffin: That's correct. And we think those efforts will continue. The House Budget Reconciliation Bill, for example, has about $155 billion more in the budget for ICE, a large increase over its current budget. This will likely mean greater efforts at interior removals. About half of it goes to stricter border enforcement. The other half goes to new agents and more operations. We'll see what the final bill looks like, but it would be about a five-fold increase in funding.Michael Gapen: Okay. So much fewer encounters, meaning fewer migrants entering the U.S., and stepped-up enforcement on interior removals. So, I guess, shifting gears on the back of that data. Two important visa programs have also been in the news. One is the so-called CHNV Parole Program that's allowed Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to enter the U.S. on parole. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the administration could proceed with removing their immigration status.We also have immigrants on TPS, or Temporary Protected Status, which is subject to periodic removal; if the administration determines that the circumstances that warranted their immigration into the U.S. are no longer present. So, these would be immigrants coming to the U.S. in response to war, conflict, environmental disasters, hurricanes, so forth.So, Sam, how do you think about the ramping up of immigration controls in these areas? Is the end of these temporary programs important? How many immigrants are on them? And what would the cancellation of these mean in terms of your outlook for immigration?Sam Coffin: Yeah, for CHNV Paroles, there are about 500,000 people paroled into the U.S. The Supreme Court ruled that the administration can cancel those paroles. We expect now that those 500,000 are probably removed from the country over the next six months or so. And the temporary protected status; similarly, there are about 800,000 people on temporary protected status. About 600,000 of them have their temporary status revoked at this point or at least revoked sometime soon. And it looks like we'll get a couple hundred thousand in deportations out from that program this year and the rest next year.The result is net immigration probably falling to 300,000 people this year. We'd expected about a million, when we came into this year, but the faster pace of deportation takes that down. So, 300,000 this year and 300,000 next year, between the reduction in border encounters and the increase in deportations.Michael Gapen: So that's a big shift from what we thought coming into the year. What does that mean for population growth and growth in the labor force? And how would this compare – just put it in context from where we were coming out of the pandemic when immigration inflows were quite large.Sam Coffin: Yeah. Population growth before the pandemic was running 0.5 to 0.75 percent per year. With the large increase in immigration, it accelerated 1-1.25 percent during the years of the fastest immigr

Our analysts Andrew Sheets and Aron Becker explain why European credit markets’ performance for the rest of 2025 could be tied to U.S. growth.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Aron Becker: And I'm Aron Becker, Head of European Credit Strategy.Andrew Sheets: And today on the program, we're continuing a series of conversations covering the outlook for credit around the world. Morgan Stanley has recently updated its forecast for the next 12 months, and here we're going to bring you the latest views on what matters for European credit.It's Thursday, June 12th at 2pm in London.So, Aron, it's great to have this conversation with you. Today we're going to be talking about the European credit outlook. We talked with our colleague Vishwas in the other week about the U.S. credit outlook. But let's really dive into Europe and how that looks from the perspective of a credit investor.And maybe the place to start is, from your perspective, how do you see the economic backdrop in Europe, and what do you think that means for credit?Aron Becker: Right. So, on the European side, our growth expectations remain somewhat more challenging. Our economists are expecting growth after a fairly strong start to slow down in the back half of this year. The German fiscal package that was announced earlier this year will take time to lift growth further out in 2026. So, in the near term, we see a softening backdrop for the domestic economy.But I think what's important to emphasize here is that U.S. growth, as Vishwas and you have talked about last time around, is also set to decelerate on our economists forecast more meaningfully. And that matters for Europe.Two reasons why I think the U.S. growth outlook matters for European credit. One, nearly a quarter of European companies’ revenues are generated in the U.S. And two, U.S. companies themselves have been very actively tapping the European corporate bond markets. And in fact, if you look at the outstanding notion of bonds in the euro benchmarks, the largest country by far is U.S. issuers. And so, I do think that we need to think about the outlook on the macro side, more in a global perspective, when we think about the outlook for European credit. And if we look at history, what we can deduct from the simple correlation between growth and credit spreads is current credit valuations imply growth would be around 3 percent. And that's a stark contrast to our economists’ forecast where both Europe and U.S. is decelerating to below 1 percent over the next 12 months.Andrew Sheets: But Aron, you know, you talked about the slow growth, here in Europe. You talked about a slower growth picture in the U.S. You talked about, you know, pretty extensive exposure of European companies into the U.S. story. All of which sound like pretty challenging things. And yet, if one looks at your forecasts for credit spreads, we think they remain relatively tight, especially in investment grade.So, how does one square that? What's driving what might look like, kind of, a more optimistic forecast picture despite those macro challenges?Aron Becker: Right. That's a very important question. I think that it's not all about the growth, and there are a number of factors that I think can alleviate the pressures from the macro side. The first is that unlike in the U.S., in Europe we are expecting inflation to decelerate more meaningfully over the coming year. And we do think that the ECB and the Bank of England will continue to ease policy. That's good for the economy and the eventual rebound. And we also think that it's good for demand for credit products. For yield buyers where the cash alternative is getting less and less compelling, I think they will see yields on corporate credit much more attractive. And I do think that credit yields right now in Europe are actually quite attractive.Andrew Sheets: So, Aron, you know, another question I had is, if you think about some of those dynamics. The fact that interest rates are above where they've been over the last 10 years. You think about a growth environment in Europe, which is; it's not a recession, but growth is, kind of, 1 percent or a little bit below.I mean, some ways this is very similar to the dynamic we had last year. So, what do you think is similar and what do you think is different, in terms of how investors should think about, say, the next 12 months – versus where we've been?Aron Becker: Right. So, what's really similar is, for example, the yield, like I just mentioned. I think the yield is attractive. That hasn't really changed over the past 12 months. If you just think about credit as a carry product, you're still getting around between 3-3.5 percent on an IG corporate bond today.What's really different is that over the same period, the ECB has already lowered front-end rates by 200 basis points. And at

Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy Michael Zezas reads the fine print of U.S. tax legislation to understand how it might affect foreign companies operating in the U.S. and foreign investors holding U.S. debt.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Today we're talking about a proposal tucked away in U.S. tax legislation that could impact investors in meaningful ways: Section 899.It’s Wednesday, June 11th, at 12 pm in New York. So, Section 899 is basically a new rule that's part of a bigger bill that passed the House. It would give the U.S. Treasury the power to hit back with taxes on foreign companies if they think other countries are unfairly taxing U.S. businesses. And this rule could override existing tax agreements between countries, even applying to government funds and pension plans.The immediate concern is whether foreign holdings of U.S. bonds would be taxed – something that’s not entirely clear in the draft language. Making the costs of ownership higher would affect holders of tens of trillions of U.S. securities. That includes about 25 percent of the U.S. corporate bond market. In short, the concern is that this would disincentivize ownership of U.S. bonds by overseas investors, creating extra costs or risk premium – meaning higher yields. The good news is that there's a decent chance the Senate will tweak or clarify Section 899. Consider the evidence that the motive of those who drafted this provision doesn’t seem to have been to tax fixed income securities. If it was, you’d expect the official estimates of how much tax revenue this provision would generate to be far higher than what was scored by Congress. Public comments by Senators seem to mirror this, signaling changes are coming. But while that might mitigate one acute risk associated with 899, other risks could linger. If the provision were enacted, it acts as an extra cost on foreign multinationals investing in building businesses in the U.S. That means weaker demand for U.S. dollars overall. So while this is not at the core of our FX strategy team’s thesis on why the dollar weakens further this year, it does reinforce the view. For European equities, our equity strategy team flags that Section 899 adds a whole new layer of worry on top of the tariff concerns everyone's been talking about. While people have been focused on European goods exports to the U.S., Section 899 could affect a much broader range of European companies doing business in America. The most vulnerable sectors include Business Services, Healthcare, Travel & Leisure, Media, and Software – basically, any European company with significant U.S. business.The bottom line, even if modified, if section 899 stays in the bill and is enacted, there’s key ramifications for the U.S. dollar and European stocks. But pay careful attention in the coming days. The provision could be jettisoned from the Senate bill. It's still possible that it's too big of a law change to comply with the Senate’s budget reconciliation procedure, and so would get thrown out for reasons of process, rather than politics. We’ll be tracking it and keep you in the loop.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market please leave us a review. And tell your friends. We want everyone to listen. 

Our Head of Asia Technology Research Shawn Kim discusses China's distinctly different approach to AI development and its investment implications.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Shawn Kim, Head of Morgan Stanley’s Asia Technology Team. Today: a behind-the-scenes look at how China is reshaping the global AI landscape.     It’s Tuesday, June 10 at 2pm in Hong Kong. China has been quietly and methodically executing on its top-down strategy to establish its domestic AI capabilities ever since 2017. And while U.S. semiconductor restrictions have presented a near-term challenge, they have also forced China to achieve significant advancements in AI with less hardware. So rather than building the most powerful AI capabilities, China’s primary focus has been on bringing AI to market with maximum efficiency. And you can see this with the recent launch of DeepSeek R1, and there are literally hundreds of AI start-ups using open-source Large Language Models to carve out niches and moats in this AI landscape.  The key question is: What is the path forward? Can China sustain this momentum and translate its research prowess into global AI leadership? The answer hinges on four things: its energy, its data, talent, and computing. China’s centralized government – with more than a billion mobile internet users – possess enormous amounts of data. China also has access to abundant energy: it built 10 nuclear power plants just last year, and there are ten more coming this year. U.S. chips are far better for the moment, but China is also advancing quickly; and getting a lot done without the best chips. Finally, China has plenty of talent – according to the World Economic Forum, 47 percent of the world’s top AI researchers are now in China. Plus, there is already a comprehensive AI governance framework in place, with more than 250 regulatory standards ensuring that AI development remains secure, ethical, and strategically controlled. So, all in all, China is well on its way to realizing its ambitious goal of becoming a world leader in AI by 2030. And by that point, AI will be deeply embedded across all sectors of China’s economy, supported by a regulatory environment. We believe the AI revolution will boost China’s long-term potential GDP growth by addressing key structural headwinds to the economy, such as aging demographics and slowing productivity growth. We estimate that GenAI can create almost 7 trillion RMB in labor and productivity value. This equals almost 5 percent of China’s GDP growth last year. And the investment implications of China’s approach to AI cannot be overstated. It’s clear that China has already established a solid AI foundation. And now meaningful opportunities are emerging not just for the big players, but also for smaller, mass-market businesses as well. And with value shifting from AI hardware to the AI application layer, we see China continuing its success in bringing out AI applications to market and transforming industries in very practical terms. As history shows, whoever adopts and diffuses a new technology the fastest wins – and is difficult to displace. 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 analysts Betsy Graseck, Manan Gosalia and Ryan Kenny discuss the major discussions they expect to highlight Morgan Stanley’s upcoming U.S. Financials conference.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Betsy Graseck: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Betsy Graseck, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Large Cap Bank Analyst and Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research. Today we take a look at the key debates in the U.S. financials industry. It’s Monday, June 9th at 10:30am in New York.Tomorrow Morgan Stanley kicks off its annual U.S. Financials Conference right here in New York City. We wanted to give you a glimpse into some of the most significant themes that we expect will be addressed at the conference. And so, I'm here with two of my colleagues, Manan Gosalia, U.S. Midcap Banks Analyst, and Ryan Kenny, U.S. Midcaps Advisor Analyst.Investors are grappling with navigating economic uncertainty from new tariff policies, inflation concerns, and immigration challenges – all of which impacts financial growth and credit quality. On the positive side, they are also looking closely at regulatory shifts under the Trump administration, which could ease banking rules for the first time since the Great Financial Crisis.Let's hear what our experts are expecting. Manan, ahead of the conference, what key themes do you expect mid-cap banks will highlight?Manan Gosalia: So, there are three key themes that we've been focused on for the mid-cap banks: loan growth, net interest margins, and capital. So, first on loan growth. Loan growth for the regional banks has been fairly tepid at about 2 to 3 percent year-on-year, and the tone from bank management teams has been fairly mixed in the April earning season that followed the tariff announcements on April 2nd. Some banks were starting to see the uncertainty weigh on corporate decision making and borrowing activity, while others were only seeing a slow down in some parts of their portfolio, with a pickup in other parts. Now that we've had two months to digest the announcements and several more positive developments on tariff negotiations, we expect that the tone from bank management teams will be more positive. Now, we don't expect them to say growth is accelerating, but we do expect that they will say loan growth is holding up with strong pipelines. On the second topic, net interest margins, we expect to hear that there is still room for margin expansion as we go through this year. And that's coming in two places, particularly as bank term deposits continue to reprice lower. And then the back book of fixed rate loans and securities, essentially assets that were put on the books four to five years ago when rates were a lot lower, are now rolling over at today's higher rates. Betsy Graseck: So, is the long end of the curve going up a good thing?Manan Gosalia: Yes, for net interest margins. But on the flip side, the tenure going up is slightly negative for bank capital. So that brings me to my third theme. The regional banks are overall in a much better place on capital than they were two years ago. Balance sheets have improved. Capital levels remain solid across the sector. But the recent increase in the long end of the curve is marginally negative for capital, given that there will be a higher negative mark on securities that banks hold. But we believe that higher capital levels that regional banks have accumulated over the past couple of years will help cushion some of these negative marks, and we don't expect the recent shift in the tenure will have a meaningful impact on bank capital plans.Betsy Graseck: So, the increase in the 10-year pulls down capital a little bit, but not enough to trip any regulatory minimums?Manan Gosalia: Correct.Betsy Graseck: So, all in the 10-year yield going up is a good thing?Manan Gosalia: It's slightly negative, but I would expect it does not impact bank growth plans. Betsy Graseck: Okay. All in, what's the message from mid-cap banks?Manan Gosalia: All in, I would expect the tone to be a little more positive than the banks had at April earnings.Betsy Graseck: Excellent. Thanks so much, Manan. Ryan, what about you? What are you expecting mid-cap advisors will say?Ryan Kenny: So, I think we'll hear a lot about the trends in M&A. And when we last heard from investment bank management teams during April earnings, the messaging was more cautious. We heard about M&A deals being paused as companies processed the Liberation Day tariffs, and a small number of deals being pulled. Tomorrow at our conference, expect to hear a measured but slightly improved tone. Look, there's still a lot of uncertainty out there, but what's changed since April is the fact that the U.S. administration is flexing in response to markets. So that should help shore up more confidence needed to do deals, and there's tremendous pent-up demand for corporate activity. Over the last

Morgan Stanley’s midyear outlook defied the conventional view in a number of ways. Our analysts Serena Tang and Vishy Tirupattur push back on the pushback to their conclusions, explaining the thought process behind their research.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Serena Tang: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley's Chief Cross-Asset StrategistVishy Tirupattur: And I'm Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist.Serena Tang: Today's topic, pushback to our outlook.It's Friday, June 6th at 10am in New York.Morgan Stanley Research published our mid-year outlook about two weeks ago, a collaborative effort across the department, bringing together our economist views with our strategist high conviction ideas. Right now, we're recommending investors to be overweight in U.S. equities, overweight in core fixed income like U.S. treasuries, like U.S. IG corporate credit. But some of our views are out of consensus.So, I want to talk to you, Vishy, about pushback that you've been getting and how we pushback on the pushback.Vishy Tirupattur: Right. So, the biggest pushback I've gotten is a bit of a dissonance between our economics narrative and our markets narrative. Our economics narrative, as you know, calls for a significant weakening of economic growth. From about – for the U.S. – 2.5 percent growth in 2024 goes into 1 percent in 2025 and in 2026. And Fed doesn't cut rates in 2025, and cuts seven times in 2026.And if you look at a somewhat uninspiring outlook for the U.S. economy from our economists – reconciling an uninspiring economic outlook on the U.S. economy with the constructive view we have on U.S. assets, equities, credit, treasuries – that's been a source of contention. So how do we reconcile this? So, my pushback to the pushback is the following; that they are different plot lines across different asset classes. So, our economists have slowing of the economy – but not an outright recession. Our economists don't have rate cuts in 2025 but have seven rate cuts in 2026.So, if you look at the total number of rate cuts that are being priced in by the markets today, roughly about two rate cuts in [20]25, and about between two and three rate cuts in 2026, we expect greater policy easing than what's currently priced in the markets. So that makes sense for our constructive view on interest rates, and in government bonds and in duration that makes sense.From a credit point of view, we enter this point with a much better credit fundamentals in leverage and coverage terms. We have the emergence of a total yield-based buyer base, which we think will be largely intact at our expectations, and you layer on top of that – the idea that growth slows but doesn't fall into recession is also constructive for higher quality credit. So that explains our credit view.From an equities view, the drawdowns that we experienced in April, our equity strategists think marks the worst outcomes from a policy point of view that we could have had. That has already happened. So looking forward, they look for EPS growth over the course of the next 12 months. They look for benefits of deregulation to kick in. So, along with that seven rate cuts, get them to be comfortable in being constructive about their views on equities. So all of that ties together.Serena Tang: And I think what you mentioned around macro not being the markets is important here. Because when we did some analysis on historical periods where you had low growth and low inflation, actually in that kind of a scenario equities did fine. And corporate credit did fine. But also, in an environment where you have rather unencouraging growth, that tends to map onto a slightly risk-off scenario. And historically that's also a kind of backdrop where you see the dollar strengthen.This time out, we have a very out of consensus view; not that the dollar will weaken, that seems quite consensus. But the degree of magnitude of dollar weakening. Where have you been getting the most pushback on our expectations for the dollar to depreciate by around 9 percent from here?Vishy Tirupattur: So, the dollar weakness in itself is not out of consensus, largely driven by narrowing of free differentials; growth differentials. I think some of the difference between the extent of weakness that we are projecting comes from the assessment on the policy and certainty. So, the policy uncertainty adds a greater degree of risk premia for taking on U.S. assets.So, in our forecast, we take into account not only the differentials in rates and growth, but also in the policy uncertainty and the risk premia that the investors would demand in the face of that kind of policy uncertainty. And that really explains why we are probably more negative on the outcome for U.S. dollar than perhaps our competition.Serena Tang: The risk premium part, I think bring us to one of the biggest debates

The global market for obesity drugs is expanding. Our U.S. Pharma and Biotech Analyst Terrence Flynn discusses what’s driving the next stage of global growth for GLP-1 medicines.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Terrence Flynn: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Terrence Flynn, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Pharma and Biotech Analyst. The market for obesity medicines is at an inflection point, and today I'll focus on what's driving the next stage of global growth.It's Thursday, June 5th at 2pm in New York.GLP-1 medicines have been viewed by many stakeholders as one of the most transformative medications in the market today. They've exploded in popularity over the last few years and become game changers for many people who take them. These drugs have large cap biopharma companies racing to innovate. They've had ripple effects on food, fitness, and fashion. They truly are a major market force. And now we're on the cusp of a significant broadening of use of these medicines.Currently the U.S. is the largest consumer in the world of GLP-1s. But new versions of these medicines suggest that this market will extend beyond the U.S. to significantly larger numbers of patients globally. On our estimate, the Total Addressable Market or TAM for obesity medications should reach $150 billion globally by 2035, with approximately [$]80 billion from the U.S. and [$]70 billion from international markets.Now this marks a meaningful increase from our 2024 forecast of [$]105 billion and reflects a greater appreciation of opportunities outside of the U.S. We think obesity drug adoption will likely accelerate as patients and providers become more familiar with the new products and as manufacturers address hurdles in production, distribution, and access.Current adoption rates of GLP-1 treatments within the eligible obesity population are about 2 to 3 percent. This is in the U.S., and roughly 1 percent in the rest of the world. Now, when we look out further, we anticipate these figures to surge to 20 percent and 10 percent respectively, really driven by five things.First, after a period of shortages, supply constraints have improved, and the drug makers are investing aggressively to increase production. Second new data show that obesity drugs have broader clinical applications. They can be used to treat coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, kidney disease, or even sleep apnea. They could also potentially fight Alzheimer's disease, neuropsychiatric conditions, and even cancer.Third, we think coverage will expand as obesity drugs are approved to treat diseases beyond obesity. Public healthcare coverage through Medicare should also broaden based on these expected approvals. Fourth, some drug makers are successfully developing obesity drugs, in pill form instead of injectables. Pills are of course easier to administer and can reach global scale quickly. And finally, drug makers are also developing next gen medications with even higher efficacy, new mechanisms of action, and more convenient, less frequent dosing.All in all, we think that over the next decade, broader GLP-1 adoption will extend well beyond biopharma. We expect significant impacts on medical technology, healthcare services, and consumer sectors like food, beverages, and fashion, where changes in patient diets could reshape market dynamics.Thanks so much 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 analysts Andrew Sheets and Vishwas Patkar take stock of the U.S. credit market, noting which segments are on firm footing going into a period of slower growth.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts On the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Vishwas Patkar: And I'm Vishwas Patkar, Head of U.S. Credit Strategy at Morgan Stanley.Andrew Sheets: Today on the program, we're going to have the first in a series of conversations covering our outlook for credit around the world.It's Wednesday, June 4th at 2pm in London.Vishwas Patkar: And 9am in New York.Andrew Sheets: Vishwas, along with many of our colleagues at Morgan Stanley, we recently updated our 12-month outlook for credit markets around the world. Focusing on your specialty, the U.S., how do you read the economic backdrop and what do you think it means for credit at a high level?Vishwas Patkar: So, our central scenario of slowing growth, somewhat firm inflation and no rate cuts from the Fed until the first quarter of 2026 – when I put all of that together, I view that as somewhat mixed for credit. It's good for certain segments of the market, not as good for others.I think the positive on the one side is that with the recent de-escalation in trade tensions, recession risks have gone lower. And that's reflected in our economists' view as well. I think for an asset class like credit, avoiding that drill downside tail I think is important. The other positive in the market today is that the level of all in yields you can get across the credit spectrum is very compelling on many different measures.The negative is that we are still looking at a fair bit of slowing in economic activity, and that's a big downshift from what we've been used to in the past few years. So, I would say we're certainly not in the Goldilocks environment that we saw for credit through the second half of last year. And it's important here for investors to be selective around what they invest in within the credit market.Andrew Sheets: So, Vishwas, you kind of alluded to this, but you know, 2025 has been a year that so far has been dominated by a lot of these large kind of macro questions around, you know, what's going to happen with tariffs. Big moves in interest rates, big moves in the U.S. dollar. But credit is an asset class that's, you know, ultimately about lending to companies. And so how do you see the credit worthiness of U.S. corporates? And how much of a risk is there that with interest rates staying higher for longer than we expected at the start of the year – that becomes a bigger problem?Vishwas Patkar: Yeah, sure. I think it's a very important question Andrew because I think taking a call on markets based on the gyrations in headlines is very hard. But in some ways, I think this question of the credit worthiness of U.S. companies is more important and I think it really helps us filter the signal from the noise that we've seen in markets so far this year.I would say broadly, the health of corporate balance sheets is pretty good and, in some ways, I think it's maybe a more distinguishing feature of this cycle where corporate credit overall is on a firmer footing going into a period of slower growth – than what we may have seen in prior instances. And you can sort of look at this balance sheet health along a few different lines.In aggregate, we haven't really seen credit markets grow a lot in the last few years. M&A activity, which is usually a harbinger of corporate aggression, has also been fairly muted in absolute terms. Corporate balance sheet leverage has not grown. And I think we've been in this high-interest rate environment, which has kept some of these animal spirits at bay. Now what this means is, that the level of sensitivity of credit markets to a slow down in the economy is somewhat lower.It does not mean that credit markets can remain immune no matter what happens to the economy. I think it's clear if we get a recession, spread should be a fair bit wider. But I think in our central scenario, it makes us more confident than otherwise that credit overall can hold up okay.Now your question around the risk of rates staying higher. This I think goes back to my point about where in the credit market you're looking. I think up the quality spectrum, I think there are actually – there's a lot of demand tailwinds for credit given the pickup in sponsorship we've seen from insurance companies and pension funds in this cycle.At the other end of the quality spectrum, if you're looking at highly levered capital structures, that's where I think the risk of interest rates being high can lead to defaults being sort of around average levels and higher than they would otherwise be.Andrew Sheets: So, Vishwas, kind of sticking with that central scenario, kind of briefly, what would be a segment of U.S. credit that you t

Our Thematics and U.S. Economics analysts Michelle Weaver and Arunima Sinha discuss how American consumers are planning to spend as they consider tariffs, inflation and potential new tax policies. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michelle Weaver: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver, U.S. Thematic and Equity strategist.Arunima Sinha: And I'm Arunima Sinha from the Global and U.S. Economics Teams.Michelle Weaver: Today – an encouraging update on the U.S. consumer.It's Tuesday, June 3rd at 10am in New York.Arunima, the last couple of months have been challenging not only for global markets, but also for everyday people and for individual households; and we heard pretty mixed information on the consumer throughout earning season. Quite a few different companies highlighted consumers being more choiceful, being more value oriented. All this to say is we're getting a little bit of a mixed message.In your opinion, how healthy is the U.S. consumer right now?Arunima Sinha: So, Michelle, I'm glad we're starting with the sort of up upbeat part of the consumer. The macro data on the consumer has been holding up pretty well so far. In the first quarter of [20]25, consumer spending has actually been running at a similar pace as the first quarter of [20]24. Nominal consumption spending grew 5.5 percent on a year-on-year basis. Goods were up almost 4 percent. Services were up more than 6 percent.So, all of that was good. What our takeaway was that we had a lot of strength in good spending, and that did probably reflect some of the pull forward on the back of tariff news. But that pace of growth suggests that there is an aggregate consumer. They have healthy balance sheets, and they're willing to spend.And then what's driving that consumption growth from our point of view. We think that labor market compensation has been running at a pretty steady pace so far. So more than 5.5 percent quarterly analyzed. PCE inflation has been running at just over 3 percent. And so even though equity markets did see some greater volatility, they didn't seem to impact the consumer at least in the first quarter of data. And so, we've had that consumer in a pretty good shape.But with all of this in the background, we know, tariffs have been in the news, and tariff fears have weighed heavily on consumer sentiment. But then tariff headlines have also become more positive lately, and consumers might be feeling more optimistic. What's your data showing?Michelle Weaver: So that really depends on what data you're looking at. We saw a pretty big rebound in consumer sentiment if you look at the Conference Board survey. But then we saw flat sentiment, when you look at the University of Michigan survey. These two surveys have some different questions in them, different subcomponents.But my favorite way to track consumer sentiment is our own proprietary consumer survey, which did show a pretty big pickup in sentiment towards the economy last month. And we saw sentiment rebound significantly for both conservatives and liberals.So, this wasn't just a matter of one political party, you know, having a change of opinion. Both sides did see an improvement in sentiment. Although consumer sentiment for conservatives improved off a much higher base. The percent of people reporting being very concerned about tariffs also fell this month. We saw that move from 43 percent to 38 percent after the reduction in tariffs on China. So, people are, you know, concerned a little bit less there. And that's been a really big thing people are watching.Arunima Sinha: Feeling better about the news is great. Are they actually planning to spend more?Michelle Weaver: So encouragingly we did also see a big rebound in consumers short term spending outlooks in the survey. 33 percent of consumers expect to spend more next month and 17 percent expect to spend less.So that gives us a net of positive 16 percent. This is in line with the five-year average level we saw there, and up really substantially from last month's reading of 5 percent. So, 5 percent to 16 percent. That's a pretty big improvement.We also saw spending plans rise across all income groups. though we did see the biggest pickup for higher income consumers and that figure moved from 12 percent to 31 percent. Additionally, we saw longer term spending plans – so what people are planning to spend over the next six months – also improve across all the categories we look at.Arunima Sinha: And were there any specific changes about how the consumers were responding to the tariff headlines?Michelle Weaver: Yeah, so people reported pulling forward some purchases, due to fear of tariff driven price increases. So, people were planning for this, similarly to what we saw with companies. They were doing a little bit of stockpiling. Consumers were doing this as well. So, our survey showed that over half of people said t

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains how his outlook on earnings and valuations give him a constructive view on U.S. equities for the next 12 months.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Mike Wilson: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll discuss where there is the most push back to our Mid-year outlook and why I remain convicted in our generally constructive view on U.S. equities for the next 12 months.It's Monday, June 2nd at 11:30am in New York.So, let’s get after it.To briefly summarize our outlook, we have maintained our 6500 12-month price target for the S&P 500 this year despite what has been a very volatile first five months – both in terms of news flow and price action. Part of the reason we didn’t change this view stems from the fact that we expected the first half to be challenging for U.S. stocks but to be followed by a more favorable second half. Much of this was related to our view that the new administration would pursue the growth negative part of their policy agenda first. This played out -- with their focus on immigration enforcement, spending cutbacks and tariffs. In addition to these policy adjustments, we also expected AI capex to decelerate in the first half after such fast growth last year. All of these factors conspired to weigh on both economic growth and earnings revisions.Second, the way in which tariffs were rolled out on Liberation Day was a shock to most market participants, including us, and served as the perfect catalyst for what can only be described as capitulation selling by many institutional investors. That capitulation has set the stage for the very reflexive snap back in equity prices that is also supported by a positive rate of change on policy, earnings revisions breadth, financial conditions and a weaker U.S. dollar.The main push back to our views centers on our constructive earnings outlook for high single digit growth both this year and next and our view that valuations can remain elevated at 21.5x forward Earnings. On the earnings front, our calendar year earnings estimates already incorporate a  mid-single-digit percent hit to bottoms-up consensus forecasts. Second, our Leading Earnings Indicator  which projects Earnings Per Share growth 12 months out is suggesting a sideways consolidation in growth in the high single-digit range over the next year.Third, a weaker dollar, elements of the tax bill and AI-driven productivity should be incremental tailwinds for earnings that are not in our model. Fourth, we have  experienced rolling recessions for many sectors of the private economy for the last 3 years, which makes  growth comparisons easier. Finally, and most importantly, the rate of change on earnings revisions breadth has inflected higher from a very low level after a year-long downturn. On valuation, our work shows that if earnings growth is above the long-term median of 7 percent and if the fed funds rate is down on a year-over-year basis, it's very rare to see multiple compression. In fact, Price Earnings multiples have expanded 90 percent of the time under these conditions to the tune of 9 percent over a 12- month period. Therefore, in some ways we’re being conservative with our forecast for the S&P 500's  price earnings ratio to remain flat at current levels over the next year.With respect to our favorite  valuation metric, the equity risk premium, it’s interesting to note that in the week following Liberation Day, the Equity Risk Premium reached the same level we witnessed in the aftermath of the 9-11 shock in 2001 and even exceeded the risk premium reached during the Long-Term Capital Management crisis in 1998. Both episodes resulted in 20 percent corrections to the S&P 500 much like we experienced this year only to be followed by very strong equity markets over the next year.The bottom line is that I remain convicted in both our earnings forecast for high single digit earnings growth for this year and next; and my view that valuations can remain elevated in this classic late cycle expansion of slower economic growth that typically elicits interest rate cuts from the Fed.Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review; and if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why the legal confusion over U.S. tariffs plus the pending U.S. budget bill equals a revived focus on interest rates for investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.Today I'm going to revisit a theme that was topical in January and has become so again. How much of a problem are higher interest rates?It's Friday, May 30th at 2pm in London.If it wasn't so serious, it might be a little funny. This year, markets fell quickly as the U.S. imposed tariffs. And then markets rose quickly as many of those same tariffs were paused or reversed. So, what's next?Many tariffs are technically just paused and so are scheduled to resume; and overall tariff rates, even after recent reductions towards China, are still historically high. The economic data that would really reflect the impact of recent events, well, it simply hasn't been reported yet. In short, there is still significant uncertainty around the near-term path for U.S. growth. But for all of our tariff weary listeners, let's pretend for a moment that tariffs are now on the back burner. And if that's the case, interest rates are coming back into focus.First, lower tariffs could mean stronger growth and thus higher interest rates, all else equal. But also importantly, current budget proposals in the U.S. Congress significantly increase government borrowing, which could also raise interest rates. If current proposals were to become permanent. for example, they could add an additional [$]15 trillion to the national debt over the next 30 years, over and above what was expected to happen per analysis from Yale University.Recall that prior to tariffs dominating the market conversation, it was this issue of interest rates and government borrowing that had the market's attention in January. And then, as today, it's this 30-year perspective that is under the most scrutiny. U.S. 30-year government bond yields briefly touched 5 percent on January 14th and returned there quite recently.This represents some of the highest yields for long-term U.S. borrowing seen in the last two decades. Those higher yields represent higher costs that must ultimately be borne by the U.S. government, but they also represent a yardstick against which all other investments are measured. If you can earn 5 percent per year long term in a safe U.S. government bond, how does that impact the return you require to invest in something riskier over that long run – from equities to an office building.I think some numbers here are also quite useful. Investing $10,000 today at 5 percent would leave you with about $43,000 in 30 years. And so that is the hurdle rate against which all long-term investments or now being measured.Of course, many other factors can impact the performance of those other assets. U.S. stocks, in fairness, have returned well over 5 percent over a long period of time. But one winner in our view will be intermediate and longer-term investment grade bonds. With high yields on these instruments, we think there will be healthy demand. At the same time, those same high yields representing higher costs for companies to borrow over the long term may mean we see less supply.Thank you as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And tell a friend or colleague about us today.

After the federal court’s ruling against Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, and an appeals court’s temporary stay of that ruling, our analysts Michael Zezas and Michael Gapen discuss how the administration could retain the tariffs and what this means for the U.S. economy.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to the Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy.Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist.Today, the latest on President Trump's tariffs.It's Thursday, May 29th at 5pm  in New York.So, Mike, on Wednesday night, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down President Trump's reciprocal tariffs. This ruling certainly seems like a fresh roadblock for the administration.Michael Zezas: Yeah, that's right. But a quick word of caution. That doesn't mean we're supposed to conclude that the recent tariff hikes are a thing of the past. I think investors need to be aware that there's many plausible paths to keeping these tariffs exactly where they are right now.Michael Zezas: First, while the administration is appealing this decision, the tariffs can stay in place. But even if courts ultimately rule against the Trump administration, there are other types of legal authorities that they can bring to bear to make sure that the tariff levels that are currently applied endure. So, what the court said the administration had done improperly was levy tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).And there's been active debate all along amongst legal scholars about if this was the right law to justify those tariff levies. And so, there's always the possibility of court challenges. But what the administration could do, if the courts continue to uphold the lower court's ruling, is basically leverage other legal authorities to continue these tariffs.They could use Section 122 as a temporary authority to levy the 10 percent tariffs that were part of this kind of global tariff, following the reciprocal trade announcement. They also could use the existing Section 301 authority that was used to create tariffs on China in 2018 and 2019, and extend that across of all China imports; and therefore, fill in the gap that would be lost by not being able to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to tariff some of China's imports.So bottom line, there's lots of different legal paths to keep tariffs where they are across the set of goods that they're already applied to.Michael Gapen: So, I think that makes a lot of sense. And with all that said, where do you think we stand right now with tariffs?Michael Zezas: So, if the court ruling were to stand then the 10 percent tariffs on all imports that the U.S. is currently levying, that would have to go away. The 30 percent tariffs on roughly half of China imports, that would've to go away. And the 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico around fentanyl, that would have to go away as well.What you'd be left with effectively is anything levied under section 232 or 301. So that's basically steel, aluminum, automobile tariffs. And tariffs on the roughly half of China imports that were started in 2018 and 2019. But as we said earlier, there's lots of different ways that the authority can be brought to bear to make sure that that 10 percent import tariff globally is continued as well as the incremental tariffs on China.But Michael, turning to you on the U.S. economy, what’s your reaction to the court's ruling? It seems like we're just going to have a continuation of existing tariff policy, but is there something else that investors need to consider here?Michael Gapen: Well, I'm not a trade lawyer. I'm not entirely surprised by the ruling. It did seem to exceed what I'll call the general parameters of the law, and it wasn't what we – as a research group and a research team – were thinking was the most likely path for tariffs coming into the year, as you mentioned. And as we, as a group wrote, we thought that they would rely mainly on section 301 and 232 authority, which would mean tariffs would ramp up much more slowly. And that's what we had put into our original outlook coming into the year.We didn't have the effective tariff rate reaching 8 to 9 percent until around the middle of 2026. So, it reflected the fact that it would take effort and time for the administration to put its plans on tariffs in into place. So, I think this decision kind of shifts our views back in that direction. And by that I mean, we originally thought most of 2025 would be about getting the tariff structure in place. And therefore, the effects of tariffs would be hitting the economy mainly in 2026.We obviously revise things where tariffs would weigh on activity in 2025 and postpone Fed cuts into 2026. So, I think what it does for the moment is maybe tilts risks back in the other direction. But a

Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research & Public Policy Strategy, Michael Zezas, shares the answers to clients’ top U.S. policy questions from Morgan Stanley’s Japan Investor Summit.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Fixed Income Research & Public Policy Strategy. Today, takeaways from our Japan Investor Summit. It’s Wednesday, May 28th at 10:30am in New York. Last week, I attended our Japan Investor Summit in Tokyo: Two full days of panels on key investment themes and one-on-one meetings with clients from all parts of the Morgan Stanley franchise. During the meeting, Morgan Stanley Research launched its mid year economics and market strategy outlooks. So needless to say there was a healthy dialogue on investment strategy over those 48 hours. And I want to share what were the most frequent questions I received and, of course, our answers to those questions.  As you could guess, U.S. tariff policy was a key focus. Could tariffs re-escalate? Or was the worst behind us; and if so, could investors set aside their concerns about the U.S. economy? It’s a complicated issue so accordingly our answer is nuanced. On the one hand, the current state of play is mostly aligned where we thought tariff policy would be by end of year. It’s just arrived much earlier. Higher overall U.S. tariffs with a skew toward higher tariffs on China relative to the rest of world, as the U.S. has less common ground with them and thus greater challenges in reaching a trade agreement with China in a timely manner. So that might imply we’ve arrived at the end point. But we think that’s too simple of a way for investors to think about it. First there’s plenty of potential for escalation from current levels as part of ongoing negotiations. And even if it’s only temporary it could affect markets. Second, and perhaps more importantly, even though the U.S. cutting tariffs on China from very high levels recently brought down the effective tariff rate, it’s still considerably higher than where we started the year. So one’s market outlook will still have to account for the pressures of tariffs, which our economists translate into slower growth and higher recession risk this year.  Another key concern – U.S. fiscal policy, and whether the U.S. would be embarking on a path to smaller deficits, in line with campaign promises. Or if the tax and spending bill making its way through Congress would keep that from happening. For investors we think it’s most important to focus on the next year, because what happens beyond that is highly speculative. And we do not expect deficits to come down in the next year. Extending expiring tax cuts, and extending some new ones, albeit with some spending offsets, should modestly expand the deficit next year in our estimates; and some further deficit expansion should come from other factors baked into the budget, like higher interest payments.  It's understandable these two questions came up, because we do think the answers are key to the outlook for markets. In particular, they inform some of the stronger views in our markets’ outlook. For example, slower relative U.S. growth and the related potential for foreign investors to increasingly prefer their portfolios reflect their local currency should keep the U.S. dollar weakening – a key call our team started this year with and now continues. Another example, the shape of the U.S. Treasury yield curve. Higher deficits and the uncertainty about inflation caused by tariffs should make for a steeper yield curve. So while we expect U.S. Treasury yields to fall, making for good returns for high grade bonds including corporate credit, the better returns might be in shorter maturities.  Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen. And if you like what you hear, tell a friend or a colleague about us today.

Live from the Morgan Stanley Luxury Conference in Paris, our analysts Arunima Sinha and Eduoard Aubin discuss the economic and consumer trends shaping demand for luxury goods.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Arunima Sinha: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Arunima Sinha from Morgan Stanley's Global and U.S. Economics teams.Eduoard Aubin: And I'm Eduoard Aubin, Head of the Luxury Goods team.Arunima Sinha: This episode was recorded last week when we were at the annual Morgan Stanley Luxury Conference in Paris. In it, we bring you an overview of what we heard from companies and investors about the hottest trends in the luxury industry.It's Tuesday, May 27th at 8am in Paris.For several years now, the luxury industry has been riding a post pandemic boom. And the top luxury brands experience 80 percent or greater sales growth between 2019 and [20]24. So Ed, is this trend going to continue or has it started to moderate and why?Eduoard Aubin: No, it has already started to moderate clearly last year. So, the growth rates of some of the leading luxury good brands, you know, over the past, four or five years, was clearly double digit CAGR growth.What we've seen in 2024 – is the market, luxury goods market worldwide has already started to contract. It was very moderate, about 2-3 percent. But it's very unusual because over the past 30 years, the market has contracted only once or twice. So, it started last year already. But we think it's going to, you know, accelerate; the decline could be even a bit more significant this year to low to mid single digit.And there are a number as to – of reasons as to why the market has luxury goods market has moderated. First of all, there's been post-COVID; post pandemic. There's been a wallet shift away from ownership of goods to more spend on experiences such as travel, restaurants, dining out, et cetera.The other thing is that you had a lot of, you know, closets, which were full post the pandemic. People were at home, disposable income was high and there were certainly a lot of, you know, purchase, which was done during the pandemic. And then, and we'll talk about it in a second, there is also this view that maybe luxury good companies have increased prices maybe a bit touch excessively during the pandemic; and potentially pricing out the middle income consumer.Arunima Sinha: This is an incredible conference and we've been talking to a lot of corporates and we've been talking to a lot of investors. What are some of the key debates that you've been hearing about?Eduoard Aubin: So I mean, front and center, it's what's going on in terms of the – from a macro standpoint – in terms of the key, two key markets for the luxury good sector, which are China and the U.S., to put things in perspective, and we look at it on a nationality standpoint here rather than a geographic standpoint.The reason is that there is a lot of cross-border shopping, which is done when it comes to luxury. The Chinese nationals account for about a third of total demand, total spend on the luxury goods market, 32-33 percent. So, they are the number one nationality today, clearly. The number two is the Americans, which account for, who account for about 21-22 percent of the spend.So, combined that's more than 50 percent of the spend and certainly more than supposedly 50 percent of the growth over the next three to five years. So clearly a lot of focus on these two nationalities. What's going on in terms of the wealth effect in China and in the U.S.? What's going on in terms of the health of the middle-income consumer in China and in the U.S.?The other debate related to that is what's going on in terms of international travel? What we've heard from companies during the conference is that there are certainly less Americans now coming to Europe, in this quarter, in the second quarter, and this had been a key driver of the spend over the past few months partially related to the currency.There is also; there are also less Chinese going to Japan, which was also a key – a factor of growth for the industry. Chinese spend about 30 percent of their total spend outside of China, and Japan was the number one market in terms of spend for them in recent years ahead of Europe.And what we've seen and what we heard from the companies attending the conference is that these two nationalities are spending less abroad, which is why we think, the second quarter sales could be a bit under pressure more than in the first quarter.The other debate is about, you know, the middle-income consumers we talked about. Luxury brands have raised prices quite a bit. For some of them they doubled the sales price of the items during the pandemic. And again, there is a debate about the fact that they might have been pricing out the middle-income consumer. And obviously that has come at the time where the discretionary spend of the middle-income consumer, you know, the aspirational cu

Global trade tensions have eased after a steadying in U.S. policy shifts, leading our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson to make a more bullish case for the second half of 2025.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast, I will discuss recent developments on tariffs and interest rates, and how it affects our 12 month view for U.S. Equities.It's Friday, May 23rd at 9am in New York.So, let’s get after it.The reduction in the headline tariff rate on China from 145 percent to 30 percent extended the rally in stocks last week and should help to support both corporate and consumer confidence. More importantly, the 90-day détente came at a critical juncture, in my view, as a few more weeks of what was essentially a trade embargo would have likely led to a recession.Equity market volatility also subsided considerably amid the decline in trade policy uncertainty. In fact, both measures peaked well before the deal with China came together and are now back below where they were pre-Liberation Day. To me, this means trade headwinds have likely peaked in rate of change terms and are unlikely to return to such levels again. This would fit with the capitulatory price action we saw in early April with the average stock in the S&P 500 experiencing a 30 percent drawdown. In short, while the lagging hard data is likely to come in softer over the next coming months, the equity market already priced it in April. In the event of a recession that still arrives, we think the April lows will still hold, assuming it's a mild one with manageable risk to credit and funding markets.As further support for stocks, earnings revisions breadth appears to have bottomed. This indicator has leading properties in terms of the direction of earnings forecasts and is an important gauge of corporate confidence, in our view. The combination of upside momentum in revision breadth and last week's deal with China has placed the S&P 500 firmly back in our original pre-Liberation Day first half range of 5500-6100. Having said that, we think continued upward progress in earnings revisions breadth into positive territory will be necessary to break through 6100 in the near term, given the stickiness of 10-year Treasury yields.Amidst these developments, we released our mid -year outlook earlier this week and updated our base, bear and bull case targets for the S&P 500. In short, we effectively pushed out the timing of our original 6500 price target for the end of this year to 12 months from today. This is mainly due to a less dovish Fed and therefore higher 10-year Treasury yields than our economists and rates strategists expected at the end of last year. We also trimmed our EPS forecasts modestly to adjust for higher than expected tariff rates, at least for now.Looking ahead, we are more bullish today than we were at the end of last year given the growth negative policy announcements are now behind us and the Fed’s next move is likely to be multiple cuts. In short, the rate of change on earnings revisions breadth, interest rates and policy changes from the administration are all now pointing in a positive direction, the opposite of six months ago and why I was not bullish on the first half of this year.The near-term risk for U.S. equities remains very overbought conditions and interest rates. With the Fed on hold due to lingering inflation concerns and Moody’s downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt last Friday, 10-year Treasury yields are back above 4.5 percent; the level where the correlation between equities and rates tends to move back into negative territory. Ultimately, we think the Treasury and Fed have tools they can and will use to manage this risk. However, in the short term, this is a potential catalyst for the S&P 500 to take a break and even lead to a 5 percent correction. We would look to add equity risk into such a correction should it materialize given our bullish 6-12-month view.Thanks for tuning in. I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review; and if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Our analysts Serena Tang and Seth Carpenter discuss Morgan Stanley’s out-of-consensus view on U.S. exceptionalism, and how investors should position their portfolios given the current market uncertainty.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Seth: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist.Serena: And I'm Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley's, Chief Global Cross-Asset Strategist.Seth: Today, we're going to pick up the conversation where we left it off, talking about our mid-year outlook; but this time I get to ask Serena the questions.It's Thursday, May 22nd at 10am in New York.Serena, we're back for part two of this podcast. Let's jump in where we left off. We've seen a lot of policy surprise in the last six months. We've had a big sell off in the beginning of April, in part inspired by all of this uncertainty.What are you telling clients? What do you think investors should be doing? How should they be positioning their portfolios in the current circumstances?Serena: So, we are recommending going overweight in U.S. equities and going overweight in core fixed income like U.S. treasuries and like investment grade corporate credit. And we have a very strong preference for U.S. over rest of the world assets, except the dollar. Now I think for us, the main message is that you have global growth slowing, which is what you talked about yesterday.But you know, risky assets can look past the low growth and do well, while treasuries can look forward to the many Fed cuts you guys are expecting in 2026 and rally. But if I look at valuations that does suggest equities and credit have completely, almost priced out, growth slowdown odds. Meaning that I think there is still some downside and we'd recommend quality across the board.Seth: In your judgment then, looking around the world at all the different asset classes, how well, or perhaps how poorly, are those asset classes priced for the sort of macro views that we were just discussing?Serena: So I think the market that’s probably least priced for the slowing economy that you and your team have been forecasting is really in the government bond space. I think the prospect of a lot more Fed cuts than what is currently priced into the market will lower government bond yields, particularly starting in 2026.As you know, our rates team has a target of 3.45 percent for U.S. Treasury 10-year yields, and 2.6 percent for U.S. Treasury two-year yields. Meaning that we also get a steeper curve by this time next year. And this translates to more than 10 percent of total returns for U.S. Treasuries – very attractive; in large part because the markets aren't priced for the Fed scenario that you and your team are forecasting.Seth: Let me, then push a little bit on one of the things that I've been talking to clients about, or at least been asked about, which is the dollar. The role of the dollar? U.S. exceptionalism? Is it real?Serena: Yeah that's a great question because I think this is where we are the most out of consensus. If you've noticed, all of our views right now really line up as us being pretty constructive on U.S. dollar assets. Like at a time when everyone's still really debating the end of U.S. exceptionalism. And we really push back against the idea that foreign investors would or should abandon U.S. assets significantly.There are very few alternatives to U.S. dollar assets right now. I mean, like if you look at investible stock market cap, U.S. is nearly five times the size of the next biggest market, which is Europe. And in the fixed income side of things, more than half of liquid high grade fixed income paper is in U.S. dollars.Now, even if there were significant outflows from U.S. dollar assets, there are very few places that money can find a haven, safe or otherwise. This is not to say there won't ever be any other alternatives to U.S. dollar assets in the future. But that shift in market size takes time, which means that TINA -- there is no alternative -- remains a theme for now.Seth: That view on the dollar weakening from here, it's baked into my team's economic forecast. It's baked into the strategy team's forecast across research. So then let me take it one step forward. What does all this mean about portfolio preferences, your recommendation for clients when when they're investing in assets that are not U.S. dollar denominated.Serena: You are right. I mean, if there's one U.S. asset that we just like, it's the U.S. dollar. So, you know, over the next 12 months we expect key factors, which drove the dollar strength. You know, positive growth, yield differentials relative to other G10 economies. Those factors will fade substantially. And we also think because of the political uncertainty in the U.S. currency hedging ratios on exposure to U.S. assets may increase, which could further pressure the U.S.