U.K. Economy: Volatility's Impact Across Markets

As the U.K. grapples with structural, political, and economic issues, how are markets affected across assets, and what stories may look better for investors than others? Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and U.K. Economist Bruna Skarica discuss.

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Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan stanley's Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. 

Bruna Skarica: And I'm Bruna Skarica, Morgan Stanley's U.K. Economist. 

Andrew Sheets: And on part two of this special two part edition of the podcast, we'll be talking about the market implications of the latest political, economic and market developments in the U.K. It's Friday, October. 28th at 2 p.m. in London. 

Bruna Skarica: So Andrew, we already discussed the economic outlook for the U.K., and today I'd like to turn our conversation to you and your cross asset views. Obviously the current economic and political situation in the U.K. has a very significant impact on both macro and micro markets. Let's start with one of the number one investor questions around the U.K., which is the mortgage market. Roughly one in four mortgages has a variable rate and current estimates suggest that more than a third of UK mortgage holders will see their rates rise from under two to over 6% over the next year. What is your outlook for the mortgage market and its impact on the U.K. consumer, especially amid what is already severe cost of living crisis? 

Andrew Sheets: Like the U.S. most household debt in the U.K. is held in the form of mortgages. Unlike t,vhe U.S., though, those mortgages tend to have a quite short period where the rate is fixed. The typical U.K. mortgage, the rate is only fixed for 2 to 5 years. Which means that if you bought a house in 2020 or 2021, a lot of those mortgages are coming due for a reset very soon. And that reset is large. The mortgage, when it was taken out in 2020, might have had a rate of 2%. The current rate that it will reset to is closer to 6%. So that's a tripling of the interest rate that these homeowners face. So this is a very severe consumer shock, especially if you layer it on top of higher utility bills. This is, I think, a big challenge that, as you correctly identified in our conversation yesterday, that the Bank of England is worried about. And, you know, this is one reason why we think the pound will weaken. I'm sure we'll talk about the pound more, but if rate rises in the U.K. work their way into the household much faster because the mortgage fixed period is much shorter, maybe that means the Bank of England can't hike as much as markets expect. Whereas the Fed can because the dynamics in the mortgage market are so much different. 

Bruna Skarica: Indeed. Now, aside from that, U.K. rates have also seen a historical level of volatility this year. The pound as well has been weak all year, even though it has rallied a bit recently. Perhaps let's focus on the currency first. How do you see the pound from here? Do you think the downside risks have subsided or the structural risks still remain? 

Andrew Sheets: So the pound is a very inexpensive currency. It's inexpensive on a number of the different valuation measures that we look at, purchasing power parity, a real effective exchange rate and it's certainly fallen a lot. But our view is that the pound will fall further and that this temporary bounce that the pound has enjoyed in the aftermath of another new leadership team in the country is ultimately going to be short lived. A lot of the economic challenges that were there before the mini budget are still there. Weak economic growth, a large current account deficit, trade friction coming out of Brexit. And also I think this part about the Bank of England maybe not raising rates as much as the market expects, there's that much less interest income for investors for holding the pound. We forecast a medium term level for the pound relative to the dollar, about 1.05, so still lower from here. And we do think the pound will be the underperformer across U.K. assets. 

Bruna Skarica: Now aside from the pound I've mentioned, investors have been very focused on the UK rates market where we have indeed seen a lot of volatility in recent weeks. Now what do valuations look like here after all the fiscal U-turns? And is Morgan Stanley still bearish on gilts? 

Andrew Sheets: It's common to talk about historic moves in the global market and sometimes you realize you're talking about a market that's been around for 10 years or 20 years. The U.K. bond market's been around for hundreds of years. And we saw some of the largest moves in that history over the last 2 months. So these have been really extreme moves, both up and down, as a result of the fallout from that mini budget. But going forward we think U.K. rates will rise further from here, we think bonds will underperform and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that the real interest rate on U.K. gilts, the yield above expected inflation, it's not very high, it's about zero actually. Whereas if I invest in a U.S. inflation protected security, I get about 1.5% more than the inflation rate. And then I think you add on this challenge of it's a smaller market, you add on the challenge of there's more political uncertainty, and then you add in the the risk that inflation stays higher than the Bank of England expects, that core inflation remains more persistent. And I think all of these are reasons why the market could inject a little bit more risk premium into the gilt market. One other thing that's been highlighted by our colleagues in interest rate strategy, is just simply there's a lot of supply gilts. There's supply of gilts not just because the governments running a deficit, but there's supply because the Bank of England was a major buyer and a major holder of gilts during the year of quantitative easing and it's shifting towards quantitative tightening. So heavy supply, low real rates, and I think a potential for kind of a higher risk premium are all reasons why we think gilts underperform both bonds and treasuries. 

Bruna Skarica: Now that you mentioned quantitative tightening, of course, the Bank of England is planning to sell its credit holdings as well. What is the situation in the sterling credit market? Can you walk us through the challenges and opportunities there right now for both domestic and foreign investors? 

Andrew Sheets: Yeah. So I think the credit market in the U.K. is actually one of the better stories in this market. Now it's not particularly liquid. But I think where sterling credit has some advantages is, one, it's actually a relatively international market. Only about half of it references U.K. companies, the other half of it is global companies, including a lot of U.S. issuers. So the credit market is not a particularly domestically focused index to the extent people are worried about the U.K. domestic situation. It's a market that trades at a spread discount to the U.S., both because of some of the recent volatility and the fact it's a little bit less liquid. this is a market that yields around 6.5% - 6.75% on investment grade credit. That's, I think, a pretty good return relative to expected inflation, relative to where we think credit risk is in that market. So, you know, amidst some other more difficult stories, we think the credit market might end up being a relatively better one. 

Bruna Skarica: Finally, let's take a step back perhaps, and take a look at some of the U.K.'s structural vulnerabilities. The U.K. has a very weak net international investment position, it's reliant on foreign money to fund some of its deficit and despite the recent fiscal U-turns, the U.K.'s fiscal deficit is still relatively large. In the context of these vulnerabilities, can you maybe discuss how recent events have affected foreign investors' confidence, and how do you see things going forward? 

Andrew Sheets: Yes, so I think this is a really important issue and maybe a good one to close on. The U.K., as you just mentioned, runs a very large current account deficit. It imports much more than it exports, and when you do that you need to attract foreign capital to make up that difference. Now the U.S. also imports more than it exports, the U.S. also runs a large current account deficit, but because the U.S. is this large deep capital market, it's seen as a relative winner in the global economy in terms of both the makeup of its companies and its longer term growth it tends to have an easier time attracting that foreign capital. The U.K. has more challenges there. It's a much smaller market, it doesn't have the same sort of tech leadership that you see in the U.S. and in terms of attracting the foreign capital into the equity market, well, that's been more difficult because you've had some uncertainty over what U.K. corporate tax policy will be. The U.K. equity market also tends to be quite energy and commodity focused. So in an ESG focused world, it's more complicated to attract inward investment. And then on the bond market side, the U.K.'s bonds don't yield more than U.K. inflation at the moment. So again, that's probably worked against attracting foreign investment. So maybe one other factor there that is important and we've touched this in a glancing way throughout this conversation, is brexit. That the U.K.'s exit from the European union does still present a number of big uncertainties around how U.K. companies and the U.K. economy will operate relative to its largest trading partner. And so, again, we can see a scenario where just simply higher risk premiums or lower valuations are ultimately needed to clear the market. 

Andrew Sheets: So Bruna, thanks for taking the time to talk. 

Bruna Skarica: Thanks, Andrew. 

Andrew Sheets: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.