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Mike Wilson: A Shift in Recession Views
23 januari 2023 · 4 min
While there seemed to be a consensus that U.S. Equities will struggle through the first half of the year before finishing strong, views are now varying on the degree and timing of a potential recession. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, January 23rd at 11am in New York. So let's get after it.
Coming into this year, the number one investor concern was that everyone seemed to have the same outlook for U.S. equities - a tough first half followed by a strong finish. Views varied on the degree of the drawdown expected and magnitude of the rebound, but a majority expected a U.S. recession to begin sooner rather than later. Fast forward just a few weeks and the consensus view has shifted materially, particularly as it relates to the recession view. More specifically, while more investors are starting to entertain a soft landing for the economy, many others have pushed out the timing of a recession to the second half of the year. This change is due in part to China's reopening gaining steam and the sharp decline in European natural gas prices.
While these are valid considerations for investors to modify their views, we think that price action has been the main influence. The rally this year has been led by low quality and heavily shorted stocks. It's also witnessed a strong move in cyclical stocks relative to defensive ones. This cyclical rotation in particular is convincing investors they are missing the bottom and they must reposition. Truth be told, it has been a powerful shift, but we also recognize that bear markets have a way of fooling everyone before they're done. The final stages of the bear are always the trickiest. In bear markets like last year, when just about everyone loses money, Investors l…
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Andrew Sheets: What is an Optimal Asset Allocation?
20 januari 2023 · 3 min
The financial landscape is filled with predictions about what comes next for markets, but how do investors use these forecasts to put a portfolio together? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, January 20th at 2 p.m. in London.
The financial landscape is filled with predictions about what markets will do. But how are these predictions used? Today, I want to take you through a quick journey through how Morgan Stanley research thinks about forecasting, and how those numbers can help put a portfolio together.
Forecasting is difficult and as such it's always easier to be more vague when talking about the future. But when we think about market expectations, being specific is essential. That not only gives an expectation of which direction we think markets will go, but by how much and over a specific 12 month horizon.
Details here can also really matter. For example, making sure you add dividends back to equity returns, adjusting bond forecasts for where the forwards are, and thinking about all asset classes in the same currency. In this case, U.S. dollars.
Consistency in assumptions is another factor that is difficult but important. We try to set all of our forecasts to scenarios from our global economics team. That is more likely to produce asset class returns that are consistent with each other and to the economy we expect.
With these returns in hand, we can then ask, "what's an optimal asset allocation based on our forecasts?" Now, everyone's investment objectives are different. So in this case we'll define optimal as a portfolio that will generate higher returns than a benchmark with a similar or better ratio of return to volatility. This type of analysis will consider expected return and his…
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U.S. Housing: Will Activity Continue to Slow?
19 januari 2023 · 5 min
With housing data from the last few months of 2022 coming in weaker than expected, what might be in store for mortgage investors? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss. Lees meer
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Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley.
Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research.
Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. It's Thursday, January 19th at 11 a.m. in New York.
Jay Bacow: So, Jim, the housing data hasn't been looking all that great recently. We've talked about this bifurcated outlook for the U.S. housing market, still holding that view?
Jim Egan: So to catch people up, the bifurcated housing narrative was between housing activity. And by that we mean sales and housing starts and home prices. We thought there was going to be a lot more weakness in sales and starts at the end of 2022 and throughout 2023, then home prices, which we thought would be more protected. Since we came out with that outlook, it's safe to say that sales have been materially weaker than we thought they'd be. To put that into a little bit of context, existing home sales for the most recent month of data, which was November, showed the largest year over year decrease for that time series since the early 1980s. Pending home sales, we only have that data going back to 2001, but pending home sales just showed their weakest November in the entire history of that time series, so weaker than it was during the great financial crisis. Now, Jay, when we talk about those kind of weaker than anticipated sales volumes, what does that mean for your markets?
Jay Bacow: Right. So while homeowners clearly are going to care about home prices, mortgage investors care more about the housing activity. And they care about that because that housing activity, those home sales…
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Michael Zezas: The Year of the Long-Term Investor
18 januari 2023 · 3 min
At a recent meeting of analysts from around the globe, we identified three central transitions for 2023 that may help investors shift towards a focus on long-term trends as opportunities. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, January 18th at 10 a.m. in New York.
What do you get when 45 global research analysts gather in a room for two days to debate secular market trends? A plan. In particular, a plan to deal with a world where key underpinnings of the global political economy are changing rapidly. For investors, we think that means concentrating on multi-year secular trends as an opportunity. In markets where short-term focus has become the norm, it stands to reason that there's less competition and more potential outperformance to be earned by analyzing the market impacts of longer-term trends. That's why we recently gathered analysts from around the globe to identify the key secular themes that Morgan Stanley research should focus on this year.
The agenda for our meeting included over 30 topics, but the discussion gravitated around a smaller subset of themes whose potential market impact was substantial, but perhaps beyond what analysts could plausibly perceive or analyze individually. Understanding these three global transitions appeared central to the questions of inflation, interest rates and the structure of markets themselves.
The first is rewiring global commerce for a multipolar world, one with more than one meaningful power base and commercial standard, where companies and countries can no longer seek efficiencies through global supply chains and market access without factoring in geopolitical risks. We've spoken much about that in this space, but our analysts believe the practi…
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Ed Stanley: Key Themes for 2023
17 januari 2023 · 5 min
At the start of each new year, we identify 10 overarching themes for the year and beyond. So what should investors be keeping an eye on in the coming months? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ed Stanley, Morgan Stanley's Head of Thematic Research in Europe. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing 10 key themes for 2023. It's Tuesday, January the 17th at 2 p.m. in London.
At the start of the New Year, we identify 10 overarching, long-term themes that we believe will command investor attention throughout the year and beyond. If you're a regular listener to the show, you may have heard my colleagues and I discussing some of these topics over the past year. We will certainly revisit them in 2023 as we develop new insights, but let me offer you a roadmap to navigate these themes in the coming months.
First, company earnings and margins are likely to come under pressure this year as pricing power declines and costs remain sticky. Both the U.S. and Europe look at risk from this theme. The S&P 500 earnings will likely face significant pressure and enter an earnings recession, and Europe earnings similarly will likely fall 10%.
Second is inflation. Last year we flagged that inventory had grown sharply, while demand, especially demand for goods, is falling. In 2023, companies will need to decide how they want to handle that excess inventory, and we believe many will turn to aggressive discounting.
Up next is China. We've talked a lot over the last few months about China's expected reopening, and we believe a V-shaped recovery in China's growth is now likely, given the sudden change in prior COVID zero policy. We expect a 5.4% GDP growth for China in 2023.
Our fourth theme is ESG. We think that what we call ESG rate of change, i.e. companies that are leaders in improving environmental, social and governance metrics, will be a critical focus for investors looking to identify opportunities tha…
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Andrew Sheets: Will Emerging Market Outperformance Hold?
13 januari 2023 · 3 min
One of the frequent questions regarding Emerging Markets is whether outperformance will hold for the short term or the long term. So what factors should investors consider when evaluating the cross asset performance of EM? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, January 13th at 2 p.m. in London.
A common question when talking about almost any market is whether the view holds for the short term or the long term. Call it a question of whether to "rent" versus "own". Is this a strategy that could work over the next six months or is it geared to the next six years? This question comes up most frequently when we discuss emerging market or EM assets.
We like EM on a cross-asset basis. We think equities in EM outperform those in the U.S. We think EM currencies outperform the U.S. dollar and the British pound. And we think EM sovereign bonds perform well on an outright basis and also relative to U.S. high yield.
Several factors underlie this positive view. First, as we've discussed in this program before, a number of key themes for 2023 look like the mirror image of 2022. Last year saw U.S. growth outperform China, inflation rise sharply and central banks hike aggressively, a combination that was pretty tough in emerging market assets. But this year we see growth in China accelerating while the U.S. slows, inflation falling and central banks pausing, a reversal that would seem much better for EM.
And this is all happening at a time when EM assets still enjoy a valuation advantage. Emerging market equities, currencies and sovereign bonds all still trade at larger than average discounts to their U.S. peers.
All of that supports the near-term case for outperformance in emerging markets, in our view. But …
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Michael Zezas: Bringing Semiconductors to North America
12 januari 2023 · 2 min
At this week’s North American Leaders Summit, the U.S., Canada and Mexico committed to boosting the semiconductor industry in another key step on the path towards a multipolar world. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Thursday, January 12th at 10 a.m. in New York.
This week, the presidents of the United States, Canada and Mexico gathered for the North American Leaders Summit. For investors, the key result was a commitment by the countries to work together to boost the semiconductor industry in North America. While the practical details of this commitment will matter greatly, the agreement in principle underscores a few key themes for investors.
The first is that the trend toward a multipolar world is ongoing, one where geopolitics increase commercial barriers and create the need for multiple supply chains, product standards and economic ecosystems. So countries and companies must rewire their own approach to production in order to cope. This semiconductor commitment is the result of a determination by the U.S. that it's in its own interest to develop a substantial and secure semiconductor industry in its own backyard, in order to mitigate supply chain risks to key industries like automobile production. In this way, the country's economy is less susceptible to overseas disruptions. And the U.S. was likely able to achieve this commitment with its neighbors by enacting the CHIPS+ legislation with bipartisan support. You may recall that legislation appropriated money to attract the construction of semiconductor facilities in the U.S.
This brings us to our second point, which is that this commitment underscores the opportunity for Mexico to benefit from U.S. led nearshoring. As we've discussed on this …
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Quantitative Strategies: A 2023 Return?
12 januari 2023 · 10 min
In 2022 it seemed like there was nowhere to hide from the negative returns in traditional investing. But if we look to quantitative strategies, we may find more flexibility for the year ahead. Lees meer
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Vishy Tirupattur Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's head of fixed income research and director of Quantitative Research.
Stephan Kessler And I'm Stephan Kessler, Morgan Stanley's global head of Quantitative Investment Strategies Research.
Vishy Tirupattur And on this special episode of the podcast, we will discuss the return of quantitative investing. It's Wednesday, January 11th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Stephan Kessler And 3 p.m. in London.
Vishy Tirupattur Stephan, 2022 was a pretty dismal year for traditional investment strategies across various asset classes. You know, equities, credit, government bonds—all of them had negative total returns for the year. And in fact, for traditional investment strategies, there really was nowhere to hide. That said, 2022 turned out to be a pretty decent year for systematic investing or factor investing or quantitative investing strategies. So can you start us off by giving us an overview of what systematic factor strategies are and how they performed in 2022 versus traditional investment strategies?
Stephan Kessler Absolutely. So, if you look at quant strategies, or systematic strategies, key is 'systematic.' So we look at repetitive, persistent patterns in the markets which can be beneficial for investors. Usually they're data driven. So we look at data which can be price data, fundamental data like economic growth data and the like, which then gives us signals for our investment. Those strategies tend to have low long-term exposures to traditional markets such as equities and fixed income. So they work as diversifiers and the rationale for why they work comes from academic theory, by and large, where we look at risk premia, we look at structural or behavioral pattern…
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Mike Wilson: Challenging the Consensus on 2023
10 januari 2023 · 4 min
As 2023 begins, most market participants agree the first half of the year could be challenging. But when we dig into the details, that's where the agreement ends. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Tuesday, January 10th at 10 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it.
To start the year, we return to a busy week of client meetings and calls. While our conversations ranged across a wide swath of topics, the most consistently asked question was, "if everybody has the same view, how can that be right?" The view I'm referring to is that most sell-side strategists and buy-side investors believe the first half of the year will be a challenging one, but the second half will be much better. Wrapped into this view is the notion that we will experience a mild recession starting in the first half. The Fed will cut rates in response and a new bull market will begin. Truth be told, this is generally our view too. So, how do we reconcile this dilemma of how the consensus can be right?
We think the answer is that the consensus can be right directionally, but it will be wrong in the magnitude and rationale which may inhibit its ability to monetize the swings we envision. More importantly, our biggest issue with the consensus view is how nonchalant many investors seem to be about the risk of a recession. When we ask investors how low they think the S&P 500 will trade in a mild recession, most suggest 35-3600 will suffice, and the October lows will hold. One rationale for this more constructive view is that we are closer to a Fed pause, and that pivot will put a floor under stock valuations.
The other reason we hear is that everyone is already bearish and expects a recession. Therefore, it must already be priced. We would caut…
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Martijn Rats: The 2023 Global Oil Outlook
9 januari 2023 · 4 min
With an eventful year for the oil market behind us, what are the factors that might influence the supply, demand, and ultimately the pricing of oil and gas in 2023? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Martijn Rats, Morgan Stanley's Global Commodity Strategist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss some of the key uncertainties that the global oil market will likely face in 2023. It's Monday, January 9th at 3 p.m. in London.
Looking back, 2022 was an eventful year for the oil market. The post-COVID demand recovery of 2021 continued during the first half and by June demand was back to 2019 levels. For a brief period the demand recovery appeared complete. Over the same period non-OPEC supply growth mostly disappointed, OPEC's spare capacity declined and inventories drew. Which eventually meant that oil markets had to start searching for the price level where demand destruction kicked in. Eventually, this forced prices of key oil products such as gasoline and diesel, to record levels of around $180-$290 a barrel in June.
Clearly, those prices did the trick. Together with new mobility restrictions in China, aggressive rate hikes by central banks and rising risk of recession, particularly in Europe, they effectively stalled the oil demand recovery. And by September, global oil demand was once again below September 2019 levels. By late 2022, brent prices that retraced much of their earlier gains and other indicators, such as time spreads and refining margins, had softened too.
Now, looking into 2023 we don't see this changing soon. Counting barrels of supply and demand suggest that the first quarter will still be modestly oversupplied. Also, declining GDP expectations, falling PMIs and central bank tightening are still weighing heavily on the oil market today. Eventually, however, we see a more constructive outlook emerging, say from the spring onwards. First, we expect to see a recovery in avia…
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Andrew Sheets: Lessons from Last Year
6 januari 2023 · 3 min
Discover what 2022, a historic year for markets, can teach investors as they navigate the new year. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, January 6th at 2 p.m. in London.
For the year ahead, we think U.S. growth slows while China accelerates, inflation moderates and central banks pause their rate hikes while keeping policy restrictive enough to slow growth. We think that backdrop favors bonds over stocks, emerging over developed markets and international over U.S. equities.
But there'll be plenty of time to discuss those views and more in the coming weeks. Today, I wanted to take a step back and talk a little about the year that was. 2022 was historic and within these unusual swings are some important lessons for the year ahead.
First, for the avoidance of doubt, 2022 was not normal. It was likely the first year since at least the 1870s that both U.S. stocks and long-term bonds fell more than 10% in the same calendar year. We don't think that repeats and forecast small positive total returns for both U.S. stocks and bonds in the year ahead.
Second, it was a year that challenged some conventional wisdom about what counts as a risky part of one's portfolio. So-called defensive stocks—those in consumer staples, health care and utilities—outperformed significantly, which isn't a surprise given the poor market environment. But other things were more unusual. Small cap stocks and value stocks, which are often seen as riskier, actually outperformed. Financial equities were the second-best performing sector in Europe, Japan and emerging markets despite being seen as a riskier sector. And both the stock market and currencies of Mexico and Brazil, markets that are seen as high beta, gained in dollar te…
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Chetan Ahya: Has Inflation in Asia Peaked?
5 januari 2023 · 4 min
With the fight against inflation quieting down in many regions, Asia saw a relatively small step up in inflation. Will that leave 2023 open to the possibility of growth outperformance? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Asia Economist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing our 2023 outlook for Asia economics. It's Thursday, January 5th at 9 a.m. in Hong Kong.
If 2022 was all about inflation, we believe 2023 will be about the aftermath of this battle with inflation. All eyes are now on how the world's largest economies will stack up after this battle with inflation. While Asia, along with the rest of the world, face multiple stagflationary shocks in 2022, we think that Asia weathered these shocks better. Indeed, we believe Asia will enter a rapid phase of disinflation and is well-positioned for growth outperformance in 2023.
The step up in Asia's inflation was smaller compared to other regions. Furthermore, Asia's inflation had more of a cost-push element, meaning it was driven to a large extent by increases in cost of raw materials. And we believe Asia's inflation already peaked in third quarter of 2022.
Asia's inflation should be rapidly returning towards central bank's comfort zone. We expect this to be the case for 90% of Asian economies by mid 2023. Cost-push factors are fading, resulting in lower food and energy inflation. Core good prices are descending rapidly, given the deflation in goods demand. Moreover, labor markets were not that tight in Asia, and wage growth has remained below its pre-COVID rates. Because of this backdrop, we've argued that central banks in Asia do not need to take policy rates deeper into restrictive territory.
In fact, all of the central banks in the region will likely stop tightening in first quarter of 2023. This pause in Asia's rate hiking cycle, coupled with an easing in U.S. 10 year bond yields and with the …
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Michael Zezas: Gridlock in the House of Representatives
4 januari 2023 · 3 min
The House of Representatives continues its struggle to appoint a new Republican Speaker. What should investors consider as this discord sets the legislative tone for the year? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, January 4th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
The focus in D.C. this week has been on choosing the new speaker of the House of Representatives. Choosing this leader, who largely sets the House's voting and workflow agenda, is a necessary first step to opening a new Congress following an election. This process is usually uneventful, with the party in the majority typically having decided who they'll support long before any formal vote. But this week, something happened, which hasn't in 100 years. The House failed to choose a speaker on the first ballot. As of this recording, we're now three ballots in and the Republican majority has yet to agree on its choice.
So is this just more DC noise? Or do investors need to be concerned? While it's too early to tell, and there don't appear to be any imminent risks, we think investors should at least take it seriously. The House of Representatives will eventually find a way to choose a speaker, but the Republicans' rare difficulty in doing so suggests it's worth tracking governance risk to the U.S. economic outlook that could manifest later in the year.
To understand this, we must consider why Republicans have had difficulty choosing a speaker. In short, there's plenty of intraparty disagreement on policy priorities and governance style. And with a thin majority, that means small groups of Republican House members can create the kind of gridlock we're seeing in the speaker's race. This dynamic certainly isn't new, but the speaker's situation suggests…
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Terence Flynn: The Next Blockbuster for Pharma?
3 januari 2023 · 3 min
As new weight management medications are being developed, might the obesity market parallel the likes of hypertension or high blood pressure to become the next blockbuster Pharma category? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Terence Flynn, Head of the U.S. Pharma Sector for Morgan Stanley Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll talk about the global obesity challenge and some of the key developments we expect in 2023. It's Tuesday, January 3rd, at 4 p.m. in New York.
If you're like most people, you're probably seeing a lot of post-holiday ads for gym memberships, diet apps and nutrition services. So this seems like a relevant time to provide an update on obesity. A few months ago, we hosted an episode on this show discussing the global obesity epidemic and how it's now reached an inflection point because of new weight management drugs that show a lot of promise and benefits.
We continue to believe that obesity is the "new hypertension or high blood pressure", and that it looks set to become the next blockbuster pharma category. Obesity has been classified by the American Medical Association, and more recently the European Commission, as a chronic disease, and its treatment is on the cusp of moving into mainstream primary care management. Essentially, the obesity market is where the treatment of high blood pressure was in the mid to late 80's, before it transformed into a $30 Billion market by the end of the 90's.
One of the main reasons the narrative around obesity is inflecting is because the focus is shifting to the upstream cause, as opposed to the downstream consequences of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Now, given this change in focus, we expect excess weight to become a treatment target. The World Health Organization estimates that about 650 million people are living with obesity, and the associated personal, social and economic costs are significant. Over time, we're expectin…
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End-of-Year Encore: 2023 Global Macro Outlook - A Different Kind of Year
30 december 2022 · 12 min
Original Release on November 15th, 2022: As we look ahead to 2023, we see a divergence away from the trends of 2022 in key areas across growth, inflation, and central bank policy. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discuss. Lees meer
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Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's chief cross-asset strategist.
Seth Carpenter: And I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's global chief economist.
Andrew Sheets: And on the special two-part episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing Morgan Stanley's Global Year Ahead outlook for 2023. Today, we'll focus on economics, and tomorrow we'll turn our attention to strategy. It's Tuesday, November 15th at 3 p.m. in London.
Seth Carpenter: And it's 10 a.m. in New York.
Andrew Sheets: So, Seth I think the place to start is if we look ahead into 2023, the backdrop that you and your team are forecasting looks different in a number of important ways. You know, 2022 was a year of surprisingly resilient growth, stubbornly high inflation and aggressively tightening policy. And yet as we look ahead, all three of those elements are changing. I was hoping you could comment on that shift broadly and also dig deeper into what's changing the growth outlook for the global economy into next year.
Seth Carpenter: You're right, Andrew, this year, in 2022, we've seen growth sort of hang in there. We came off of last year in 2021, a super strong year for growth recovering from COVID. But the theme this year really has been a great deal of inflation around the world, especially in developed markets. And with that, we've seen a lot of central banks everywhere start to raise interest rates a great deal. So what does that mean as we end this year and go into next year? Well, we think we'll start to see a bit of a divergence. In the developed market world where we've seen both a lot of inflation and a lot of central bank hiking, we think we get a gr…
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End-of-Year Encore: Global Thematics - What’s Behind India’s Growth Story?
29 december 2022 · 8 min
Original Release on December 7th, 2022: As India enters a new era of growth, investors will want to know what’s driving this growth and how it may create once-in-a-generation opportunities. Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research Michael Zezas and Chief India Equity Strategist Ridham Desai discuss. Lees meer
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Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research.
Ridham Desai: And I'm Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley's Chief India Equity Strategist.
Michael Zezas: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll discuss India's growth story over the next decade and some key investment themes that global investors should pay attention to. It's Wednesday, December 7th, at 7 a.m. in New York.
Michael Zezas: Our listeners are likely well aware that over the past 25 years or so, India's growth has lagged only China's among the world's largest economies. And here at Morgan Stanley, we believe India will continue to outperform. In fact, India is now entering a new era of growth, which creates a once in a generation shift in opportunities for investors. We estimate that India's GDP is poised to more than doubled to $7.5 trillion by 2031, and its market capitalization could grow 11% annually to reach $10 trillion. Essentially, we expect India to drive about a fifth of global growth in the coming decade. So Ridham, what in your view are the main drivers behind India's growth story?
Ridham Desai: Mike, the full global trends of demographics, digitalization, decarbonization and deglobalization that we keep discussing about in our research files are favoring this new India. The new India, we argue, is benefiting from three idiosyncratic factors. The first one is India is likely to increase its share of global exports thanks to a surge in offshoring. Second, India is pursuing a distinct model for digitalization of its economy, supported by a public utility call…
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End-of-Year Encore: Ellen Zentner - Is the U.S. Headed for a Soft Landing?
28 december 2022 · 5 min
Original Release on December 2nd, 2022: While 2022 saw the fastest pace of policy tightening on record, has the Fed’s hiking cycle properly set the U.S. economy up for a soft landing in 2023? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss our 2023 outlook for the U.S. economy. It's Friday, December 2nd, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Let's start with the Fed and the role higher interest rates play in the overall growth outlook. The Fed has delivered the fastest pace of policy tightening on record and now feels comfortable to begin slowing the pace of interest rate increases. We expect it to step down the pace to 50 basis points at its meeting later this month and then deliver a final hike in January to a peak rate of between 4.5 and 4.75%. But in order to keep inflation on a downward trajectory, the Fed will likely keep rates at that peak level for most of next year. This shift to a more cautious stance from the Fed we think will help the U.S. economy narrowly miss recession in 2023. And we think only in the back half of 2024 will the pace of growth pick back up as the Fed gradually reduces the policy rate back toward neutral, which is around 2.5%. Altogether, we forecast 2023 GDP growth of just 0.3% before rebounding modestly to 1.4% in 2024.
One bright spot in the outlook is that inflation seems to have reached a turning point. Mounting evidence points to a slowing in housing prices and rents, though they continue to drive above target inflation. Core goods inflation should turn to disinflation as supply chains normalize and demand shifts to services and away from goods. Used vehicle prices are a big contributor to lower overall inflation in our forecast, as our motor vehicle analysts believe that used car prices could be down as much as 10 to 20% next year. So overall, we expect core PCE - or personal consumption …
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End-of-Year Encore: U.S. Outlook - What Are The Key Debates for 2023?
27 december 2022 · 10 min
Original Release on November 22nd, 2022: The year ahead outlook is a process of collaboration between strategists and economists from across the firm, so what were analysts debating when thinking about 2023, and how were those debates resolved? Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Head of Fixed Income Research Vishy Tirupattur discuss. Lees meer
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Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's Chief Cross Asset Strategist.
Vishy Tirupattur: And I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Head of Fixed Income Research.
Andrew Sheets: And on this special episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing some of the key debates underpinning Morgan Stanley's 2023 year ahead outlook. It's Tuesday, November 22nd at 3 p.m. in London.
Vishy Tirupattur: And 10 a.m. in New York.
Andrew Sheets: So Vishy, within Morgan Stanley research we collaborate a lot, but I think it's not an exaggeration to say that when we sit down to write our year ahead outlooks for strategy and economics, it's probably one of the most collaborative exercises that we do. Part of that is some pretty intense debate. So that's what I was hoping to talk to you about, kind of give listeners some insight into what are the types of things that Morgan Stanley research analysts were debating when thinking about 2023 and how we resolved some of those issues. And I think maybe the best place to start is just this question of inflation, right? Inflation was the big surprise of 2022. We underestimated it. A lot of forecasters underestimated inflation. As we look into 2023, Morgan Stanley's economists are forecasting inflation to come down. So, how did that debate go? Why do we have conviction that this time inflation really is going to moderate?
Vishy Tirupattur: Thanks, Andrew. And it is absolutely the case that challenging each other's view is critically important and not a surprise that we spent a lot of time on inflation. Given that we have many upside s…
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End-of-Year Encore: U.S. Housing - How Far Will the Market Fall?
23 december 2022 · 7 min
Original Release on November 17th, 2022: With risks to both home sales and home prices continuing to challenge the housing market, investors will want to know what is keeping the U.S. housing market from a sharp fall mirroring the great financial crisis? Co-heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss. Lees meer
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Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley.
Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-head of U.S. Securities Products Research.
Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing our year ahead outlook for the U.S. housing market for 2023. It's Thursday, November 17th, at 1 p.m. in New York.
Jay Bacow: So Jim, it's outlook season. And when we think about the outlook for the housing market, we’re not just looking in 2023, people live in their houses for their whole lives.
Jim Egan: Exactly. We are contemplating what's going to happen to the housing market, not just in 23, but beyond in this year's version of the outlook. But just to remind the listeners, we have talked about this on this podcast in the past, but our view for 2023 hasn't changed all that much. What we think we're going to see is a bifurcation narrative in the housing market between activity, so home sales and housing starts, and home prices. The biggest driver of that bifurcation, affordability. Because of the increase in prices, because of the incredible increase in mortgage rates that we've seen this year, affordability has been deteriorating faster than we've ever seen it. That's going to bring sales down. But the affordability for current homeowners really hasn't changed all that much. We're talking about deterioration for first time homebuyers, for prospective homebuyers. Current homeowners in a lot of instances have locked in very low 30 year fixed rate mortgages. We think they're just incentivized to keep their homes off the market, they…
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Andrew Sheets: Which Economic Indicators are the Most Useful?
22 december 2022 · 3 min
When attempting to determine what the global economy looks like, some economic indicators at an investors disposal may be more useful, while others lag behind. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Thursday, December 22nd at 2 p.m. in London.
At the heart of investment strategy is trying to determine what the global economy will look like and what that could mean to markets. But this question has a catch. Market prices often move well ahead of the economic data, partly because markets are anticipatory and partly because it takes time to collect that economic data, creating lags. When thinking about all the economic indicators that an investor can look at, a consistent question is which of these are most and least useful in divining the future?
One early indicator we think has relatively powerful forecasting properties is the yield curve, specifically the difference between short term and long term government borrowing costs. These differences can tell us quite a bit about what the bond market thinks the economy and monetary policy is going to do in the future, and can move before broader market pricing. One example of this, as we discussed on the program last week, is that an inverted yield curve like we see today tends to mean that the end of Fed rate hikes are less helpful to global stock markets than they would be otherwise.
But at the other end of the spectrum is data on the labor market, which tends to be much more lagging. At first glance, that seems odd. After all, jobs and wages are very important to the economy, why aren't they more effective in forecasting cross-asset returns?
But drill deeper and we think the logic becomes a little bit more clear. As the economy initially weakens, most bus…
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Michael Zezas: Legislation to Watch in 2023
21 december 2022 · 3 min
As congress wraps up for 2022, and we look towards a divided government in 2023, there are a few possible legislative moves on the horizon that investors will want to be prepared for. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, December 21st at 11 a.m. in New York.
As Congress wraps up its business for the year, it's a good time to level-set on what investors should watch out for out of D.C. in 2023. While it's not an election year, and a divided government means legislative achievements will be tough to come by, it's always a good idea to be prepared. So here's three things to watch for.
First, cryptocurrency regulations. Turmoil in the crypto market seems to have accelerated lawmaker interest in tackling the thorny issue. And even if Democrats and Republicans can't come together on regulation, the Biden administration has been studying how regulators could use existing laws to roll out new rules. For investors, the most tangible takeaway from our colleagues is that crypto regulation could support large cap financials by evening the regulatory playing field with the crypto firms.
Second, watch for permitting reform on oil and gas exploration. While a late year effort led by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin didn't muster enough votes for passage. It's possible Republicans may be willing to revisit the issue in 2023 when they control the House of Representatives. If this were to pass, watch the oil markets, which might be sensitive to perceptions of future increased supply, supporting the recent downtrend in prices.
Lastly, keep an eye out for the U.S. to raise more non-tariff barriers with regard to China. While we're not aware of any specific deadlines in play, many of the laws passed in recent …
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Global Thematics: A Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion
21 december 2022 · 8 min
With the recent breakthrough in fusion energy technology, the debate around the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a commercialized energy source may leave investors wondering, is it a holy grail or a pipe dream? Global Head of Sustainability Research and North American Clean Energy Research Stephen Byrd and Head of Thematic Research in Europe Ed Stanley discuss. Lees meer
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Stephen Byrd: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Stephen Byrd, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Sustainability Research and North American Clean Energy Research.
Ed Stanley: And I'm Ed Stanley, Morgan Stanley's Head of Thematic Research in Europe.
Stephen Byrd: And on the special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll discuss the potential of nuclear fusion technology in light of a key recent breakthrough in the space. It's Tuesday, December 20th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Ed Stanley: And 2 p.m. in London.
Stephen Byrd: Ed, you recently came to this podcast to discuss your team's work on "Earthshots", technologies that can accelerate the pace of decarbonization and mitigate some of the climate change that's occurring as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, trapping the sun's heat. In a sense, Earthshots can be defined as urgent solutions to an intensifying climate crisis and nuclear fusion as one of these potential radical decarbonization technologies. So, Ed, I wondered if you could just start by explaining how nuclear fusion fits into your excellent Earthshots framework.
Ed Stanley: Absolutely. So in Earthshots we laid out six technologies we thought could be truly revolutionary and changed the course of decarbonization. Three of those were environmental and three were biological innovations. In order of investability, horizon carbon capture was first, smart grids were next, and then further out was nuclear fusion on the environmental side. In early December the U.S. Department of Energy announced the achievement of fusion ignition at the Lawrence Livermore National Labora…
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Mike Wilson: Have Markets Fully Priced an Earnings Decline?
19 december 2022 · 4 min
As focus begins to shift from inflation and interest rates to a possible oncoming earnings recession, what has the market already priced in? And what should investors be looking at as risk premiums begin to rise? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, December 19th, at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it.
While many commentators blame last week's selloff in stocks on the Fed, we think it was more about the equity market looking ahead to the oncoming earnings recession that we think is getting worse. The evidence for this conclusion is last week's drop in valuations, which was driven exclusively by a rising equity risk premium as 10 year yields remain flat. In fact, since mid-November, the equity risk premium has risen 50 basis points to 2.5%. While still very low relative to where we think it will eventually settle out next year, it's a good step in the right direction that tells us the equity market is at least contemplating the earnings risk. Until now, all of the bear market valuation compression has been about inflation, the Fed's reaction to it and the rise in interest rates.
While we called for the end of the tactical rally two weeks ago, last week's price action provided the technical reversal to confirm it. Specifically, the softer than expected inflation report on Tuesday drove the equity markets up sharply in the morning, only to fail at the key resistance levels we highlighted two weeks ago. More importantly, the price action left a negative tactical pattern that looks like the mere image of the pattern back in October, when the September inflation report came in hotter than expected. We made our tactical rally call on the back of that positive technical action in October and last week…
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Andrew Sheets: What Will the End of Rate Hikes Mean?
16 december 2022 · 3 min
As cross-asset performance has continued to be weak, there is hope that the end of the Fed’s rate hiking cycle could give markets the boost they need, but does history agree with these investor’s hopes? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, December 16th, at 3 p.m. in London.
We expect the Federal Reserve to make its last rate hike in the first quarter of next year. What does that mean? Aggressive rate increases from the Fed this year have corresponded to weak cross-asset performance, leading to a lot of hope that the end of these rate hikes will provide a major boost to markets, especially to riskier, more volatile assets like stocks and high yield bonds.
But the lessons of history are more complicated. While on average, both stocks and bonds do well once the Fed stops raising rates, there's an important catch. Stock performance is weaker in the handful of instances where the Fed has stopped while short term yields are higher than long term yields. That so-called inverted yield curve is exactly what we see today and suggests it's not so straightforward to say that the end of rate hikes means that stocks outperform.
Specifically, we can identify 11 instances since 1980 when the Federal Reserve was raising rates and then stopped. In most of these instances, the yield curve was flat and slightly upward sloping, which means 2 year yields were a little bit lower than 10 year yields. That means the market thought that interest rates at the time of the last Fed rate hike could stay at those levels for some time, applying that they were in a somewhat stable equilibrium and that the economy wouldn't see major change. Unsurprisingly, the markets seemed to like that stability, with global equities up ab…
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Sarah Wolfe: Are Consumers Going to Pull Back on Spending?
15 december 2022 · 4 min
While the consumer has been a pillar of strength this year, continued high inflation, household debt and slowing payroll growth could pose challenges to consumer spending. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Sarah Wolfe from Morgan Stanley's U.S. Economics Team. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I will give you a year end 2022 update on the U.S. consumer with a bit of our outlook for 2023. It's Thursday, December 15th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
So it's very clear the consumer has been a pillar of strength this year amid a very tough macro environment, but as rates keep rising and the labor market slows, consumers will likely need to find ways to cut costs. We are already seeing some weakness in subprime consumers and trade down among middle and higher income households.
While the wallet shift away from goods and towards services is definitely playing out, we continue to see relatively more strength than expected from consumers across both categories. This is because households have lowered their savings rates significantly as they draw down excess savings. We do not expect a material drawdown in excess savings, however, into next year as savings dwindle. We are already seeing it this morning in the November retail sales data, where spending slowed down fairly dramatically across most goods categories. We're talking about home furnishing, electronics and appliances, sporting goods, motor vehicles. On the other hand, the one category of retail sales that reflects the services side of the economy, dining out, was very strong in the retail sales report and has continued to be very strong.
Looking at the trends that will force consumers to spend less, rising interest rates are lifting the direct costs of new borrowing and slowly feeding through into higher overall debt service costs. For example, new car loan rates are at their highest level since 2010, mortgage rates are at 20 year highs, they've come o…
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Global Thematics: Earthshots Take on Climate Change
14 december 2022 · 9 min
While “Moonshots” attempt to address climate concerns with disruptive technology, more immediate solutions are needed, so what are “Earthshots”? And which ones should investors pay attention to? Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research Michael Zezas and Head of Thematic Research in Europe Ed Stanley discuss. Lees meer
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Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research.
Ed Stanley: And I'm Ed Stanley, Morgan Stanley's Head of Thematic Research in Europe.
Michael Zezas: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll discuss the potential of "Earthshots" as an investment theme in the face of intensifying climate concerns. It's Wednesday, December 14th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Ed Stanley: And 3 p.m. in London.
Michael Zezas: While climate continues to be a key political and economic debate, it's clear we're moving into a new phase of climate urgency. There's a significant mismatch between the pace of climate technology adoption, and the planet's need for those solutions. Here at Morgan Stanley we've done work around "Moonshots", ambitious and radical solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems using disruptive technology. There are some big hurdles with moonshots, however. First, they require significant political support. Also, the process of gradual, iterative decarbonization technology adoption will occur more slowly than investors expect. Given this backdrop, there's a growing need for urgent solutions. Enter what we call "Earthshots".
Michael Zezas: Ed, can you maybe start by explaining what Earthshots are and what the framework for identifying these Earthshots is relative to Moonshots?
Ed Stanley: So a Moonshot is an early stage technology with high uncertainty, but also high potential to solve a very difficult problem. And for Moonshots, the key investments are in R&D and proof of concept. An Earthshot, on the other hand, is more …
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Ravi Shanker: A Bullish Outlook for Airlines
13 december 2022 · 3 min
Over the past few years, the airline industry has faced fluctuations between too hot and too cold across demand, capacity and costs. Could conditions in 2023 be just right for increased profitability? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ravi Shankar, Morgan Stanley's Freight Transportation and Airlines Analyst. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss our 2023 outlook for the airline space and some key takeaways for investors.
As 2022 draws to a close, the outlook for airlines going into next year continues to be bullish. We think that 2023 is going to be what we call a "Goldilocks" year for the airlines, simply because we go from three years of conditions being either too cold during the pandemic, or too hot last year, to conditions being just right. This should be enough for the airlines to remain stable and to top 2019 levels in terms of profitability. However, the biggest question in the space is about the macro backdrop and consumer resilience.
Everything we are seeing so far suggests that there are no real cracks in terms of the demand environment. We expect a slight cool down on the leisure side, but some uptick on the corporate and international side going into next year.
As for pricing, when the irresistible force of demand met the immovable object of capacity restrictions in 2022, the net result was a significant increase in price, which was up 20 to 25% above pre-pandemic levels. This is arguably the biggest debate between the bulls and the bears in the space, regarding where the industry eventually ends up. We believe the pricing environment will cool slightly sequentially as capacity incrementally returns, but will stabilize well above 2019 levels. In addition, the return of corporate and international travel will be a mixed tailwind to yield in 2023.
Costs have been another big debate for the space over the last 18 to 24 months. New pilot contracts are one of the things that w…
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2023 Emerging Markets Outlook: Brighter Days Ahead
12 december 2022 · 6 min
Looking to 2023, Emerging Markets and fixed income assets are forecasted to outperform, so what should investors pay close attention to in the new year? Head of FX and EM Strategy James Lord and Global Head of EM Sovereign Credit Strategy Simon Waever discuss. Lees meer
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James Lord: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm James Lord, Morgan Stanley's Head of FX and EM Strategy.
Simon Waever: And I'm Simon Waever, Global Head of EM Sovereign Credit Strategy.
James Lord: And on this special episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing our 2023 outlook for global emerging markets and fixed income assets and what investors should pay close attention to next year.
Simon Waever: It's Monday, December 12th, at 11 a.m. in New York.
James Lord: A big theme from Morgan Stanley's year ahead outlook is the outperformance we're expecting to see from emerging markets. This isn't just about emerging market fixed income, though, which is what Simon and I focus on, but also equities. So across the board, we're expecting much brighter days ahead for EM assets.
Simon Waever: And of course, the dollar is always key and it has been extremely strong this year. But what about next year? What do you think?
James Lord: Yeah. So we are expecting the dollar to head down over 2023. In fact, it's already losing ground against a variety of G10 and EM currencies, and we're expecting this process to continue. So why do we think that? Well, there are a few key reasons. First, U.S. CPI should fall significantly over the next 12 months. This is because economic growth should slow as the rate hikes delivered this year by the U.S. Fed begin to bite. Supply chains are also finally normalizing as the world is getting back to normal following the pandemic. This should also help the Fed to stop hiking rates, and this has been a big reason for the dollar's rally this year.
Simon Waever: Right. So that's in the U.S., but what about the rest of the world? And what about China specifically?…
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Andrew Sheets: A More Promising Start to 2023
9 december 2022 · 3 min
2022 was an unusual year for stocks and bonds, and while the future is hard to predict, the start of 2023 is shaping up to look quite different across several metrics. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, December 9th, at 5 p.m. in London.
We try to be forward looking on this program, but let's take a moment to appreciate just how deeply unusual this year has been. Looking back over the last 150 years of U.S. equity and long term bond performance, 2022 is currently the only year where both stocks and long term bonds are down more than 10%.
Several factors conspired to create such an unusual outcome. To start, valuations for both stocks and bonds were expensive. Growth was weak in China, but surprisingly resilient in the developed markets. That resilient growth helped drive the highest rates of U.S. inflation in 40 years. And that high inflation invited a strong response from central banks, with the Federal Reserve's target rate rising at its fastest pace, over a 12 month period, since the early 1980s.
Looking ahead, the next 12 months look different across all of those factors.
First, starting valuations look different. U.S. BBB-rated corporate bonds began the year yielding just 3.3%, they currently yield 5.4%. The S&P 500 stock index began the year at 22x forward earnings, that's now fallen to 17.5x. And U.S. Treasury yields relative to inflation, the so-called real yield, have gone from -1% to positive 1.1%.
Second, the mix of growth changes on Morgan Stanley's forecasts. After 12 months where U.S. growth outperformed China, U.S. growth should now decelerate while growth in China picks up as the country exits zero-covid. We think growth in Europe is likely to see a recession, further emph…
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2023 Chinese Economic Outlook: The Path Towards Reopening
8 december 2022 · 7 min
As investors have kept China’s road to reopening top of mind, what comes after reopening and how might the Chinese economy and equity markets be impacted? Chief China Economist Robin Xing and Chief China Equity Strategist Laura Wang discuss. Lees meer
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Laura Wang: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Laura Wang, Morgan Stanley's Chief China Equity Strategist.
Robin Xing: I'm Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley's Chief China Economist.
Laura Wang: On this special episode of the podcast we'll discuss our 2023 outlook for China's economy and equity market, and what investors should focus on next year. It's Thursday, December 8th at 9 a.m. in Hong Kong.
Laura Wang: So, Robin, China's reopening is a top most investor concern as we head into next year. You've had a long standing call that China will be reopening by spring of 2023. Is that still your view, given the recent COVID policy changes?
Robin Xing: Yes, that's still our view. In fact, recent developments have strengthened our conviction on that reopening view. After several weeks of twists and turns following the initial relaxation on COVID management on November 10th, we think policymakers have made clear their intent to stay on the reopening path. We have seen larger cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing, all relaxed COVID restrictions in last week. We have seen the top policymakers confirmed shift in the country's COVID doctrine in public communication, and COVID Zero slogan is officially removed from any press conference or official document. They started the vaccination campaign, and last but not least, we have also see a clear focus on how to shift the public perception with a more balanced assessment of the virus. All of these enhanced our conviction of a spring reopening from China.
Laura Wang: What are some of the key risks to this view?
Robin Xing: Well, I think the key risk is the path towards a reopening. Before full reopening in the spring, China will try to flatten the curve…
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Global Thematics: What’s Behind India’s Growth Story?
7 december 2022 · 7 min
As India enters a new era of growth, investors will want to know what’s driving this growth and how it may create once-in-a-generation opportunities. Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research Michael Zezas and Chief India Equity Strategist Ridham Desai discuss. Lees meer
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Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research.
Ridham Desai: And I'm Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley's Chief India Equity Strategist.
Michael Zezas: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll discuss India's growth story over the next decade and some key investment themes that global investors should pay attention to. It's Wednesday, December 7th, at 7 a.m. in New York.
Michael Zezas: Our listeners are likely well aware that over the past 25 years or so, India's growth has lagged only China's among the world's largest economies. And here at Morgan Stanley, we believe India will continue to outperform. In fact, India is now entering a new era of growth, which creates a once in a generation shift in opportunities for investors. We estimate that India's GDP is poised to more than doubled to $7.5 trillion by 2031, and its market capitalization could grow 11% annually to reach $10 trillion. Essentially, we expect India to drive about a fifth of global growth in the coming decade. So Ridham, what in your view are the main drivers behind India's growth story?
Ridham Desai: Mike, the full global trends of demographics, digitalization, decarbonization and deglobalization that we keep discussing about in our research files are favoring this new India. The new India, we argue, is benefiting from three idiosyncratic factors. The first one is India is likely to increase its share of global exports thanks to a surge in offshoring. Second, India is pursuing a distinct model for digitalization of its economy, supported by a public utility called India Stack. Operating at population …
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Matt Hornbach: Key Currency Trends for 2023
6 december 2022 · 4 min
As bond markets appear to have already priced in what central banks will likely do in 2023, how will this path impact inflation and currencies around the world? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Matthew Hornbach, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Macro Strategy. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll talk about our 2023 outlook and how investors should view some key macro trends. It's Tuesday, December 6th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
During the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, central banks provided the global economy a safety net with uber-accommodative interest rate and balance sheet policies. In 2022, central banks started to aggressively pull away that safety net. In 2023, we expect central banks to finish the job. And in 2024, central banks will likely start to roll out that safety net again, namely by lowering interest rates.
Bond markets, which are forward looking discounting machines, are already pricing in the final stages of what central banks will likely do in 2023. The prospect of easier central bank policies should bring with it newfound demand for long term government bonds, just at a time when supply of these bonds is falling from decade long highs seen in 2021 and 2022.
Central bank balance sheets will continue to shrink in 2023, meaning central banks are not aggressively buying bonds - but investors shouldn't be intimidated. These expected reductions in central bank purchases are already well understood by market participants and largely in the price already. In addition, for the largest central bank balance sheets, the reductions we forecast simply take them back to the pre-pandemic trend.
Of course, for central bank policies and macro markets alike, the path of inflation and associated expectations will exert the most influence. We think inflation will fall faster than investors expect, even if it doesn't stabilize at or below pre-pandemic run rates.
Lower inflation around the world sh…
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Mike Wilson: Why Did Treasury Bonds Rally?
5 december 2022 · 4 min
The tactical rally in stocks has continued and treasury bonds have experienced their own rally, leaving investors to wonder when this bear market might run out of steam. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, December 5th, at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it.
Last week, the tactical rally in stocks took another step forward after Fed Chair Jay Powell's speech at the Brookings Institution. After his comments and interview, long term Treasury yields came down sharply and continued into the end of the week. This sparked a similar boost higher in equities, led by the most interest rate sensitive and heavily shorted stocks. This fits nicely with our view from a few weeks ago, which suggests that any further rally would require lower long term interest rates. It also makes sense in the context of what we think has been driving this tactical rally in the first place - the growing hope for a Fed pivot that kick saves the economic cycle from a recession.
So maybe the biggest question is why did Treasury bonds rally so much? First, we think it mostly had to do with Powell now pushing back on the recent loosening of financial conditions. Many investors we spoke with early last week thought Powell would try to cool some of the recent excitement, to help the Fed get inflation under control. Furthermore, investors seem positioned for that kind of hawkish rhetoric, so when that didn't happen we were off to the races in both bonds and stocks.
Second, the jobs data on Friday were stronger than expected, which sparked a quick sell off in bonds and stocks on Friday, but neither seemed to gain any momentum to the downside. Instead, bonds rallied back sharply, with longer term bonds ending up on the day. Meanwhil…
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Ellen Zentner: Is the U.S. Headed for a Soft Landing?
2 december 2022 · 5 min
While 2022 saw the fastest pace of policy tightening on record, has the Fed’s hiking cycle properly set the U.S. economy up for a soft landing in 2023? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss our 2023 outlook for the U.S. economy. It's Friday, December 2nd, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Let's start with the Fed and the role higher interest rates play in the overall growth outlook. The Fed has delivered the fastest pace of policy tightening on record and now feels comfortable to begin slowing the pace of interest rate increases. We expect it to step down the pace to 50 basis points at its meeting later this month and then deliver a final hike in January to a peak rate of between 4.5 and 4.75%. But in order to keep inflation on a downward trajectory, the Fed will likely keep rates at that peak level for most of next year. This shift to a more cautious stance from the Fed we think will help the U.S. economy narrowly miss recession in 2023. And we think only in the back half of 2024 will the pace of growth pick back up as the Fed gradually reduces the policy rate back toward neutral, which is around 2.5%. Altogether, we forecast 2023 GDP growth of just 0.3% before rebounding modestly to 1.4% in 2024.
One bright spot in the outlook is that inflation seems to have reached a turning point. Mounting evidence points to a slowing in housing prices and rents, though they continue to drive above target inflation. Core goods inflation should turn to disinflation as supply chains normalize and demand shifts to services and away from goods. Used vehicle prices are a big contributor to lower overall inflation in our forecast, as our motor vehicle analysts believe that used car prices could be down as much as 10 to 20% next year. So overall, we expect core PCE - or personal consumption expenditures inflation - to slow from 5%…
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Jonathan Garner: A Bullish Turn on Asia and Emerging Markets
1 december 2022 · 4 min
As Asia and Emerging Markets move from a year of major adjustment in 2022 towards a less daunting 2023, investors may want to change their approach for the beginning of a new bull market. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jonathan Garner, Chief Asia and Emerging Market Equity Strategist at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, in this episode on our 2023 outlook, I'll focus on why we recently turned more bullish on our coverage. It's Thursday, 1st of December at 8 a.m. in Singapore.
2022 was a year of major adjustment, with accelerating geopolitical shifts towards a multipolar world, alongside macro volatility caused by a surge in developed markets inflation, and the sharpest Fed tightening cycle since the Paul Volcker era 40 years ago. This took the U.S. dollar back to early 1980s peaks in real terms, and global equities fell sharply, with most markets down by double digit percentages. North Asian markets performed worse as a slowdown in tech spending, and persistently weak growth in China, weighed on market sentiment. But structural improvement in macro stability and governance frameworks was rewarded for Japan equities, as well as markets in Brazil, India and Indonesia.
Our 2023 global macro outlook paints a much less daunting picture for equity markets, despite a slower overall GDP growth profile globally than in 2022. Current market concerns are anchored on inflation and that central banks will keep hiking until the cycle ends with a deep recession, a financial accident en route, or perhaps worse - that they leave the job half done. But, and crucially, our economists forecast that U.S. core PCE inflation will fall to 2.5% annualized in the second half of next year. Alongside slowing labor market indicators, our team sees January as the last Fed hike, with rates cuts coming as soon as the fourth quarter of 2023, down to a rate of 2.375% at the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, inflation pressure…
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Michael Zezas: What Will China’s Reopening Mean for the U.S.?
30 november 2022 · 2 min
As China tries to smooth out its COVID caseload, investors should take note of the impacts those COVID policies have on global economies and key markets. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, November 30th, at 11 a.m. in New York.
Investors remain intently focused on China's COVID policies, as the tightening and loosening of travel and quarantine policies has implications for key drivers of markets. Namely the outlook for global inflation, monetary policy and global growth. We're paying close attention, and here's what we think you need to know.
Importantly, our China economics team thinks that China's restrictive COVID zero policy will be a thing of the past come spring of 2023, but there will be many fits and starts along the way. Increased vaccination, availability of medical treatment and public messaging about the lessening of COVID dangers will be signposts for a full reopening of China, but we should expect episodic returns to restrictions in the meantime as China tries to smooth out its COVID caseload.
This dynamic is important to understand for its implications to the outlook for the global economy and key markets. For example, the economic growth story for Asia should be weak in the near term, but begin to improve and outperform the rest of the world from the second quarter of 2023 through the balance of the year. In the U.S., the reopening of the China economy should help ease inflation as the supply of core goods picks up with supply chains running more smoothly. This, in turn, supports the notion that the Fed will be able to slow and eventually pause its rate hikes in 2023, even if headline inflation sees a rebound via higher gas prices from higher China demand for oil. And wh…
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Stephen Byrd: A New Approach to ESG
29 november 2022 · 4 min
Traditional ESG investing strategies highlight companies with top scores across ESG metrics, but new research shows value in focusing instead on those companies who have a higher rate of change as they improve their ESG metrics. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Stephen Byrd, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Sustainability Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll focus on our new approach to identifying opportunities that can generate both Alpha and ESG impact. It's Tuesday, November 29th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
On previous episodes of this podcast we've discussed how, although sustainable investing has been a trend over the past decade, it has faced significant pushback from critics arguing that ESG strategies - or environmental, social and governance - sacrifice long term returns in favor of the pursuit of certain ESG objectives. We have done some new work here at Morgan Stanley, suggesting that it is possible to identify opportunities that can deliver excess returns, or alpha, and make an ESG impact.
Our research found that what we call "ESG rate of change", companies that are leaders on improving ESG metrics, should be a critical focus for investors looking to identify companies that meet both criteria. What do we mean by "ESG rate of change"? Traditional ESG screens focus on "ESG best-in-class" metrics. That is, companies that are already scoring well on sustainability factors. But there is a case to be made for companies that are making significant improvements. For example, we find that there are companies using innovative technologies that can reduce costs and improve efficiency. These companies, which we call deflation enablers, generally screen very favorably on a range of ESG metrics and are reaping the financial benefits of improved efficiency. A surprisingly broad range of technologies are dropping in cost to such an extent that they offer significant net benefits, both finan…
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2023 European Outlook: Recession & Beyond
28 november 2022 · 7 min
As we head into a new year, Europe faces multiple challenges across inflation, energy and financial conditions, meaning investors will want to keep an eye on recession risk, the ECB, and European equities. Chief European Equity Strategist Graham Secker and Chief European economist Jens Eisenschmidt discuss. Lees meer
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Graham Secker Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Graham Secker, Morgan Stanley's Chief European Equity Strategist.
Jens Eisenschmidt And I'm Jens Eisenschmidt, Morgan Stanley's Chief European Economist.
Graham Secker And on this special episode of the podcast, we'll discuss our 2023 outlook for Europe's economy and equity market, and what investors should pay close attention to next year. It's Monday, November the 28th, at 3 p.m. in London.
Graham Secker So Jens, Europe faces multiple challenges right now. Inflation is soaring, energy supply is uncertain, and financial conditions are tightening. This very tricky environment has already impacted the economy of the euro area, but is Europe headed into a recession? And what is your growth outlook for the year ahead?
Jens Eisenschmidt So yes, we do see a recession coming. In year-on-year terms we see negative growth of minus 0.2% next year. There's heterogeneity behind that, Germany is most affected of the large countries, Spain is least affected. In general, the drivers are that you mentioned, we have inflation that eats into real disposable income that is bad for consumption. We have the energy situation, which is highly uncertain, which is not great for investment. And we do have monetary policy that's starting to get restrictive, leading to a tightening in financial conditions which is actually already priced into markets. And, you know, that's the transmission lack of monetary policy. So that leads to lower growth predominantly in 23 and 24.
Graham Secker And maybe just to drill into the inflation side of that a little bit more. Specifically, do you expect inflation to rise fur…
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Michelle Weaver: A Very Different Holiday Shopping Season
25 november 2022 · 3 min
As we enter the holiday shopping season, the challenges facing consumers and retailers look quite different from 2021, so how will inflation and high inventory impact profit margins? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver from the Morgan Stanley's U.S. Equity Strategy Team. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss our outlook for holiday spending in the U.S. It's Friday, November 25th, at 1 p.m. in New York.
With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, we collaborated with the Morgan Stanley U.S. economics team and several of the consumer teams, namely airlines, consumer goods, e-commerce and electronics, to analyze our consumer survey data around holiday spending. The big takeaway is that this year's holiday shopping season is going to be quite different from the one we had last year.
In 2021, we saw major supply chain malfunctions that impacted inventories and caused shoppers to start buying much earlier in the season. Limited supplies also gave companies a lot of pricing power, and this year the situation looks like it is shaping up to be the exact opposite. High inventory levels should push stores to offer discounts as they attempt to clear merchandise off shelves. Companies offering the biggest discounts will be able to grab the largest wallet share, but this will likely be a hit to their profit margins.
Additionally, inflation has weighed heavily on consumers throughout the year, and it remains their number one concern heading into the holiday shopping season. This year, we're likely to see a very bargain savvy consumer. Our survey showed that 70% of shoppers are waiting for stores to offer discounts before they begin their holiday shopping, and the majority are waiting to see deals in excess of 20%. Additionally, consumers are likely to be more price sensitive this year. About a third of consumers said they would buy a lot less gifts and holiday products if st…
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Michael Zezas: Mixed News from the U.S./China Meeting
23 november 2022 · 3 min
While the recent meeting between U.S. President Biden and China’s President Xi has signaled near term stability for the relationship between the two countries, investors will need to understand what this means for future economic disconnection. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between U.S. public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, November 23rd, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Last week, many of my colleagues and I were in Singapore meeting with clients for Morgan Stanley's annual Asia Pacific Summit. Top of mind for many was the recent meeting between U.S. President Biden and China's President Xi. In particular, there was much Thanksgiving that the two sides seemed to agree on a few points that would create some near-term stability in the relationship. But we caution investors not to read more into their meeting beyond that, and accordingly continue to prepare for a multipolar world where the U.S. and China disassociate in key economic areas.
True, there were statements of respect for each other's position on Taiwan, a return to key policy dialogs, and a recognition on both sides of the importance of the bilateral relationship to the well-being of the wider world. But that doesn't mean the two sides found a way to remain interconnected economically. Rather, it just signals that economic disconnection may be orderly and spread out as opposed to disorderly and quick. Look beyond the soothing statements from the meeting, and you see policies on both sides showing work toward economic disconnection with industrial policies and trade barriers aimed at creating separate economic and technological ecosystems. An orderly transition to this state may be costly, but it need not be disruptive.
This dynamic still leaves plenty of cross-currents for mar…
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U.S. Outlook: What Are The Key Debates for 2023?
22 november 2022 · 10 min
The year ahead outlook is a process of collaboration between strategists and economists from across the firm, so what were analysts debating when thinking about 2023, and how were those debates resolved? Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Head of Fixed Income Research Vishy Tirupattur discuss. Lees meer
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Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's Chief Cross Asset Strategist.
Vishy Tirupattur: And I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Head of Fixed Income Research.
Andrew Sheets: And on this special episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing some of the key debates underpinning Morgan Stanley's 2023 year ahead outlook. It's Tuesday, November 22nd at 3 p.m. in London.
Vishy Tirupattur: And 10 a.m. in New York.
Andrew Sheets: So Vishy, within Morgan Stanley research we collaborate a lot, but I think it's not an exaggeration to say that when we sit down to write our year ahead outlooks for strategy and economics, it's probably one of the most collaborative exercises that we do. Part of that is some pretty intense debate. So that's what I was hoping to talk to you about, kind of give listeners some insight into what are the types of things that Morgan Stanley research analysts were debating when thinking about 2023 and how we resolved some of those issues. And I think maybe the best place to start is just this question of inflation, right? Inflation was the big surprise of 2022. We underestimated it. A lot of forecasters underestimated inflation. As we look into 2023, Morgan Stanley's economists are forecasting inflation to come down. So, how did that debate go? Why do we have conviction that this time inflation really is going to moderate?
Vishy Tirupattur: Thanks, Andrew. And it is absolutely the case that challenging each other's view is critically important and not a surprise that we spent a lot of time on inflation. Given that we have many upside surprises to inflation throughout the year…
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Mike Wilson: When Will Market Volatility Subside?
21 november 2022 · 4 min
While the outlook for 2023 may seem relatively unexciting, investors will want to prepare for a volatile path to get there, and focus on some key inflection points. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, November 21st, at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it.
Last week, we published our 2023 U.S. equities outlook. In it, we detail the path to our 2023 year end S&P 500 price target of 3900. While the price may seem unexciting relative to where we're currently trading, we think the path will be quite volatile with several key inflection points investors will need to trade to make above average returns next year. The main pushback in focus from investors has centered around the first inflection - the near-term tactical upside call we made about a month ago.
Let's review a few key points of the call as we discuss how the rest of the year may play out. First, the primary tactical driver to our bullish call was simply respecting the 200 week moving average. As noted when we made the call last month, the 200 week moving average does not give way for the S&P 500 until a recession is undeniable. In short, until it is clear we are going to have a full blown labor cycle where the unemployment rate rises by at least 1-1.5%, the S&P 500 will give the benefit of the doubt to the soft landing outcome. A negative payroll release also does the trick.
Second, in addition to the 200 week moving averages key support, falling interest rate volatility led to higher equity valuations that are driving this rally. Much like with the 200 week moving average, though, this factor can provide support for the higher PE's achieved over the past month, but is no longer arguing for further upside. In other words, both the 200 we…
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Robin Xing: China’s 20th Party Congress Commits to Growth
18 november 2022 · 4 min
At the recent 20th Party Congress in China, policy makers made economic growth a top priority, but what are the roadblocks that may be of concern to global investors? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley's Chief China Economist. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I will discuss the outlook for China after the 20th Party Congress. It's Friday, November 18th, at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong.
China's Communist Party convenes a national Congress every five years to unveil mid to long term policy agenda and reshuffle its leadership. The one concluded two weeks ago marks the 20th Congress since the party's founding in 1921. One of the key takeaways is that economic growth remains the Chinese government's top priority, even as national security and the supply chain self-sufficiency have gained more importance. The top leadership's goal is to grow China to an income level on par with medium developed country by 2035. We think this suggests a per capita GDP target of $20,000, up from $12,000 today, and it would require close to 4% average growth in GDP in the coming decade.
Well, this growth target is achievable, but only with continued policy focus on growth. While China's economy has grown 6.7% a year over the last decade, its potential growth has likely entered a downward trajectory, trending toward 3% at the end of this decade, there is aging of the Chinese population, which is a main structure headwind. That could reduce labor input and the pace of capital accumulation. Meanwhile, productivity growth might also slow as geopolitical tensions increase the trend towards what Morgan Stanley terms slowbalization. The result of which is reduced foreign direct investment, particularly among sectors considered sensitive to national security. In this context, we believe Beijing will remain pragmatic in dealing with geopolitical tensions because of its reliance on key commodities and the fact exp…
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U.S. Housing: How Far Will the Market Fall?
17 november 2022 · 7 min
With risks to both home sales and home prices continuing to challenge the housing market, investors will want to know what is keeping the U.S. housing market from a sharp fall mirroring the great financial crisis? Co-heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss. Lees meer
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Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley.
Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-head of U.S. Securities Products Research.
Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing our year ahead outlook for the U.S. housing market for 2023. It's Thursday, November 17th, at 1 p.m. in New York.
Jay Bacow: So Jim, it's outlook season. And when we think about the outlook for the housing market, we’re not just looking in 2023, people live in their houses for their whole lives.
Jim Egan: Exactly. We are contemplating what's going to happen to the housing market, not just in 23, but beyond in this year's version of the outlook. But just to remind the listeners, we have talked about this on this podcast in the past, but our view for 2023 hasn't changed all that much. What we think we're going to see is a bifurcation narrative in the housing market between activity, so home sales and housing starts, and home prices. The biggest driver of that bifurcation, affordability. Because of the increase in prices, because of the incredible increase in mortgage rates that we've seen this year, affordability has been deteriorating faster than we've ever seen it. That's going to bring sales down. But the affordability for current homeowners really hasn't changed all that much. We're talking about deterioration for first time homebuyers, for prospective homebuyers. Current homeowners in a lot of instances have locked in very low 30 year fixed rate mortgages. We think they're just incentivized to keep their homes off the market, they're locked into their current mortgage, i…
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2023 Global Strategy Outlook: Big Shifts in Dynamics
17 november 2022 · 10 min
In looking ahead to 2023, the big dynamics of this year are poised to shift and investors will want to look for safety amidst the coming uncertainty. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discuss. Lees meer
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Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's global chief economist.
Andrew Sheets: And I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's chief cross-asset strategist.
Seth Carpenter: And on part two of this special two-part episode of the podcast, we're going to focus on Morgan Stanley's Year Ahead strategy outlook. It's Wednesday, November 16th, at 10 a.m. in New York.
Andrew Sheets: And 3 p.m. in London.
Seth Carpenter: Andrew, on the first part of this, you spent a bunch of time asking me questions about the outlook for the global economy. I'm going to turn the tables on you and start to ask you questions about how investors should be thinking about different asset prices going forward. There really was a big change this year, we came out of last year with big growth, things slowed down, but inflation surprised everyone to the upside. Central banks around the world started hiking rates aggressively. We've seen massive moves in FX markets, especially in the dollar. Things look very, very different. If you were to say, looking forward from here to the next year, what the biggest conviction call you have in terms of asset allocation, what would it be?
Andrew Sheets: Thanks, Seth. It's that high grade bonds do very well. You know, I think this is a backdrop where 2022 was defined by surprisingly resilient growth, surprisingly high inflation, and surprisingly hawkish monetary policy relative to where I think a lot of investors thought the year would start. And, you know, if I think about 2023 and what you and the economics team are forecasting, it's big shifts to all three of those dynamics. It's much softer growth, it's softer inflationary pressure. And it's central b…
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2023 Global Macro Outlook: A Different Kind of Year
16 november 2022 · 11 min
As we look ahead to 2023, we see a divergence away from the trends of 2022 in key areas across growth, inflation, and central bank policy. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discuss. Lees meer
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Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's chief cross-asset strategist.
Seth Carpenter: And I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's global chief economist.
Andrew Sheets: And on the special two-part episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing Morgan Stanley's Global Year Ahead outlook for 2023. Today, we'll focus on economics, and tomorrow we'll turn our attention to strategy. It's Tuesday, November 15th at 3 p.m. in London.
Seth Carpenter: And it's 10 a.m. in New York.
Andrew Sheets: So, Seth I think the place to start is if we look ahead into 2023, the backdrop that you and your team are forecasting looks different in a number of important ways. You know, 2022 was a year of surprisingly resilient growth, stubbornly high inflation and aggressively tightening policy. And yet as we look ahead, all three of those elements are changing. I was hoping you could comment on that shift broadly and also dig deeper into what's changing the growth outlook for the global economy into next year.
Seth Carpenter: You're right, Andrew, this year, in 2022, we've seen growth sort of hang in there. We came off of last year in 2021, a super strong year for growth recovering from COVID. But the theme this year really has been a great deal of inflation around the world, especially in developed markets. And with that, we've seen a lot of central banks everywhere start to raise interest rates a great deal. So what does that mean as we end this year and go into next year? Well, we think we'll start to see a bit of a divergence. In the developed market world where we've seen both a lot of inflation and a lot of central bank hiking, we think we get a great deal of slowing and in fact a bit of …
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Mike Wilson: Dealing With the Late Cycle Stage
14 november 2022 · 4 min
As we transition away from our fire and ice narrative and into the late cycle stage, investors will want to change up their strategies as we finish one cycle and begin another. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, chief investment officer and chief U.S. equity strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace. It's Monday, November 14th, at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it.
Last year's fire and ice narrative worked so well, we decided to dust off another Robert Frost jewel to describe this year's outlook, with The Road Not Taken. As described by many literary experts, and Frost himself, the poem presents the dilemma we all face in life that different choices lead to different outcomes, and while the road taken can be a good one, these choices create doubt and even remorse about the road not taken. For the year ahead, we think investors will need to be more tactical with their views on the economy, policy, earnings and valuation. This is because we are closer to the end of the cycle at this point, and that means that trends in these key variables can zig and zag before the final path is clear. In other words, while flexibility is always important to successful investing, it's critical now.
In contrast, the set-up was so poor a year ago that the trends in all of the variables mentioned above were headed lower in our view. Therefore, the right choice or strategy was about managing or profiting from the new downtrend. After all, Fire and Ice the poem is not a debate about the destination, it's about the path to that destination. In the case of our bear market call, it was a combination of both fire and ice - inflation and slowing growth, a bad combination for stocks. As it turned out, the cocktail has been just as bad for bonds, at least so far. However, as the ice overtakes the fire and inflation cools …
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Global Tech: What’s Next for EdTech?
11 november 2022 · 5 min
Education technology, or EdTech, saw significant adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet opportunity remains in this still young industry if one looks long-term. Head of Products for European Equity Research Paul Walsh and Head of the European Internet Services Team Miriam Josiah discuss. Lees meer
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Paul Walsh:] Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's Head of Products for European Equity Research.
Miriam Josiah: And I'm Miriam Josiah, Head of the European Internet Services Team within Morgan Stanley Research.
Paul Walsh: And on this very special episode of the podcast series, we'll be talking about the long-term outlook for education technology, or EdTech. It's Friday, it's the 11th of November, and it's 2 p.m. here in London.
Paul Walsh: So Miriam, next week you'll be heading to Barcelona for Morgan Stanley's annual Tech, Media and Telecom Conference, which focuses on key debates and trends in these industries. EdTech, while still in its infancy, is a segment where your team sees a lot of potential for growth. But before we get there, let's please start with the basics. What exactly is EdTech?
Miriam Josiah: So people often think of it as online learning for K-12 or university students. But we found EdTech to be quite a broad term for the digitalization of learning. So there are actually dozens of segments within EdTech. One of them is workforce education, which we think is particularly interesting and underappreciated.
Paul Walsh: And certainly many of us got a firsthand look at EdTech during COVID-19 lockdowns, whether through our children—as was the case for me personally—work related training or for our own amusement. And not surprisingly, companies in the education technology space saw a huge spike from pandemic-driven demand. So what's happening now that schools and businesses have reopened?
Miriam Josiah: So here's one of the reasons our team looked closely at EdTech. Essentially, even as we've returned to …
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Michael Zezas: The Midterm Elections’ Market Impact
10 november 2022 · 2 min
It’s almost two full days after the midterm elections in the U.S. and while we still don’t know the outcome, markets may know enough to forecast its impact. Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Jesus, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between public policy and financial markets. It's Thursday, November 10th, at 3 p.m. in New York.
It's nearly two full days after polls closed across America, and we still don't know which party will control Congress. But for investors, we very likely know all we need to know at this point. Let me explain.
It may take several days, maybe weeks to determine which party will control the Senate. But knowing which party controls the Senate won't matter much if Republicans gain a majority in the House of Representatives, as they appear likely to do as of this recording. That's because Republicans controlling at least one chamber of Congress is enough to yield a divided government, meaning that the party in control of the White House is not also in control of Congress and so can't unilaterally choose its legislative path.
For bond markets, this is a mostly friendly outcome. It takes off the table the scenario that could have led to fiscal policy from Congress that would cut against the Fed's inflation goals. That scenario would have been one where Democrats keep control of the House and expand their Senate majority. That outcome might have suggested inflation was less a political and electoral concern than previously thought, and through a broader Senate majority, given Democrats more room to legislate. If markets perceived that combination of a willingness and ability to legislate as increasing the probability of enacting spending measures, like a child tax credit, that would support aggregate demand in the US economy, then investors would also have to price in t…
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Stephan Kessler: What Does the Future Hold for ESG Investing?
9 november 2022 · 3 min
Critics of sustainable investing have said that Environmental, Social, and Governance strategies require investors to sacrifice long-term returns, but is this really the case? Lees meer
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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Stephan Kessler, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Quantitative Investment Strategies. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss the value of a quantitative approach to low carbon investing. It's Wednesday, November 9th, at 2 p.m. in London.
Sustainable investing has been a hot trend over the past decade, and most recently the new Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. has brought it into even sharper focus. Short for environmental, social and governance, ESG covers a broad range of topics and themes, for example, carbon emissions, percentage of waste recycled, employee engagement scores, human rights policies, independent board members, and shareholder rights. This breadth, however, has made defining sustainable investing a key challenge for investors. Furthermore, critics of ESG have also pushed back, arguing that ESG strategies sacrifice long term performance in favor of alignment with what has been disparagingly termed "woke capitalism".
This ongoing market debate shows no sign of abating any time soon, and so investors are looking for rigorous ways to assess ESG factors, with decarbonization being top of mind. In some recent work by quant analyst Jacob Lorenzen and myself, we decided to focus on climate change and more specifically carbon emissions as the key metric. Our systematic approach uses mathematic modeling to analyze how investors can integrate a low carbon tilt in various strategy portfolios and what kind of results they can expect.
So what did this analysis tell us? Essentially, we found little evidence that incorporating an ESG tilt substantially affects a risk adjusted performance of equity portfolios, positively or negatively. While potentially disappointing to investors …