Thoughts on the Market

This year has seen a sharp rally in the oil and gas markets, leading to high prices and a delicate balancing act for global supply and demand. Important note regarding economic sanctions. This research references country/ies which are generally the subject of selective sanctions programs administered or enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the European Union and/or by other countries and multi-national bodies. Users of this report are solely responsible for ensuring that their investment activities in relation to any sanctioned country/ies are carried out in compliance with applicable sanctions.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Markets. I'm Martijn Rats, Morgan Stanley's Global Commodity Strategist and the Head of the European Energy Research Team. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be giving you an update on global oil and the European gas market. It's Thursday, the 25th of August, at 4 p.m. in London. As the world emerged from COVID, commodities have rallied strongly. Between mid 2020 and mid 2022, the Bloomberg Commodity Index more than doubled, outperforming equities significantly and fulfilling its traditional role as an inflation hedge.However, this rally largely ran out of steam in June, even for oil. For nearly two years, the oil market was significantly undersupplied. For a while, storage can help meet the deficit, but at some point, supply and demand simply need to come into balance. If that can't happen via the supply side quick enough, it must happen via the demand side, and so the oil markets effectively searched for the demand destruction price.The price level where that happens can be hard to estimate, but in June we clearly got there. For a brief period, gasoline reached $180 per barrel and diesel even reached $190 a barrel. Those prices are difficult for the global economy to absorb, especially if you take into account that the dollar has been strengthening at the same time. With the world's central banks hiking interest rates in an effort to slow down the economy as well, oil demand has started to soften and prices have given up some of their recent strength.Now these trends can take some time to play out, possibly even several quarters. As long as fears of a recession prevail, oil prices are likely to stay rangebound. However, after recession comes recovery. There is still little margin of safety in the system, so when demand starts to improve again, there is every chance the strong cycle from last year repeats itself. This time next year we may need to ask the question, 'What is the demand destruction price?' once again.Now, one commodity that has defied all gravity is European natural gas. Over much of the last decade, Europe was accustomed to a typical natural gas price of somewhere between sort of $6 to $7 per million British thermal units. Recently, it reached the eye-watering level of $85 per MMBtu. On an energy equivalent basis, that would be similar to oil trading at nearly $500 per barrel.Now, the reason for this is, of course, the sharp reduction in supply from Russia. As the war in Ukraine has unfolded, Russia has steadily supplied less and less natural gas to Europe. Now total volumes have already fallen by around about 75%. Furthermore, Gazprom announced that flows through the critical Nord Stream 1 pipeline would temporarily stop completely later this month for maintenance to one of its turbines. In principle, this will only last three days, but the market is clearly starting to fear that this is a harbinger of a much longer lasting shutdown.These exceptional prices are already leading to large declines in demand. During COVID, industrial gas consumption in Europe fell only 2 or 3%. Last month, industrial gas use was already down 19% year-on-year. With these demand declines, Europe can probably manage with the reduced supply, but to keep demand lower for longer gas prices need to be higher for longer. The gas market has clearly noticed. Even gas for delivery by end 2024 is now trading at close to $50 per MMBtu, 10x the equivalent price in the United States.The full implications of all of this for the European economy going forward are yet to become clear, but we'll be sure to keep listeners up to date on the latest developments.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague, or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.

As Asia and EM equities continue to experience what may end up being the longest bear market in the history of the asset class, looking to past bear markets may give investors some insight into when to come off the sidelines.-----Transcript-----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, today I'll be discussing whether we're nearing the end of the current bear market in Asia and emerging market equities. It's Wednesday, August the 24th, at 8 a.m. in Singapore. The ongoing bear market in Asia and EM equities is the 11th which I've covered as a strategist. And in this episode I want to talk about some lessons I've learned from those prior experiences, and indeed how close we may be to the end of this current bear market. A first key point to make is that this is already the second longest in duration of the 11 bear markets I've covered. Only that which began with the puncturing of the dot com bubble by a Fed hike cycle in February 2000 was longer. This is already a major bear market by historical standards. My first experience of bear markets was one of the most famous, that which took place from July 1997 to September 1998 and became known as the Asian Financial Crisis. That lasted for 518 days, with a peak to trough decline of 59%. And as with so many others, the trigger was a tightening of U.S. monetary policy at the end of 1996 and a stronger U.S. dollar. That bear market ended only when the U.S. Federal Reserve did three interest rate cuts in quick succession at the end of 1998 in response to the long term capital management and Russia defaults. Indeed, a change in U.S. monetary policy and/or a peak in the U.S. dollar have tended to be crucial in marking the troughs in Asia and EM equity bear markets. And that includes the two bear markets prior to the current one, which ended in March 2020 and October 2018. However, changes in Chinese monetary policy and China's growth cycles, starting with the bear market ending in October 2008, have been of increasing importance in recent cycles. Indeed, easier policy in China in late 2008 preceded a turn in U.S. monetary policy and helped Asia and EM equities lead the recovery in global markets after the global financial crisis. Although China has been easing policy for almost a year thus far, the degree of easing as measured by M2 growth or overall lending growth is smaller than in prior cycles. And at least in part, that's because China is attempting to pull off the difficult feat of restructuring its vast and highly leveraged property sector, whilst also pursuing a strategy of COVID containment involving closed loop production and episodic consumer lockdowns. Those key differences are amongst a number of factors which have led us to recommend staying on the sidelines this year, both in our overall coverage in Asia and emerging markets, but also with respect to China. We have preferred Japan, and parts of ASEAN, the Middle East and Latin America. Finally, as we look ahead I would also note that one feature of being later on in a bear market is a sudden fall in commodity prices. And certainly from mid-June there have been quite material declines in copper, iron ore and more recently, the oil price. Meanwhile, classic defensive sectors are outperforming. And that sort of late cycle behavior within the index itself raises the question of whether by year end Asia and EM equities could once again transition to offering an interesting early cycle cyclical play. That more positive scenario for next year would depend on global and U.S. headline inflation starting to fall back, whether we would see a peak in the U.S. dollar and Fed rate hike pricing.For the time being, though, as the clock ticks down to the current bear market becoming the longest in the history of the asset class, we still think patience will be rewarded a while longer. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and recommend Thoughts on the Market to a friend or colleague today. 

The Inflation Reduction Act represents the single biggest climate investment in U.S. history, so how will these provisions influence consumers' pocketbooks and the clean energy market? Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research Michael Zezas and Global Head of Sustainability Research Stephen Byrd discuss.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research.Stephen Byrd And I'm Stephen Byrd, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Sustainability Research.Michael Zezas And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll focus on the Inflation Reduction Act's bold attempt to stem the tide of climate change. It's Tuesday, August 23rd at noon in New York.Michael Zezas Regular listeners may have heard our previous episodes on the potential impact for the U.S. economy and on taxes from the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, we'll focus on another essential aspect of this new legislation, namely its sweeping support for clean energy, which represents the single biggest climate investment in U.S. history. So, Stephen, there's a ton of important issues to address here. Let's start with an immediate pain point that most of us deal with on a daily basis, the cost of energy. How does the Inflation Reduction Act aim to lower energy costs for Americans?Stephen Byrd The simplest way to think about this is that in the past decade, wind and solar costs in the U.S. declined every year by double digits. What's exciting about the IRA is that there are really important investments that will increase the scale of manufacturing. So, the fundamental point in terms of the benefit of the IRA really is support for a variety of clean energy investments that's going to increase efficiency, reduce per unit costs. This is becoming really essentially a very big business. To put this in context, in the last 12 months utility bills in the U.S. and most of the U.S. have increased by sometimes well into the double digits. And yet clean energy costs remain quite low. Given some of the near-term COVID supply chain dynamics, costs aren't dropping as quickly as they normally would, but before long we're going to see those reductions continue. That should result in lower power costs for customers across the U.S. and that's the single biggest benefit from a sort of deflationary point of view that I can think of around the IRA.Michael Zezas And the IRA also has a stated aim to increase American energy security. In what ways does it attempt to do that?Stephen Byrd Yeah, Michael, it's really interesting. The IRA has some very broad areas of support for domestic manufacturing of all kinds, of not just clean energy but related technologies like energy storage. And we do think that's going to likely result in quite a bit of onshoring of manufacturing activity. That is good for American energy security, that brings our sources of energy production right back home, creates jobs, reduces dependency on other governments. So, for example, the subsidy for solar manufacturing is really very large. It can be as high as essentially $0.17 a watt, and to put that into context, the selling price at the wholesale level for many of these products is around $0.30 a watt. So that subsidy for domestic manufacturing should result in real investment decisions in real U.S. factories, and that will help to improve American energy security.Michael Zezas Now, another aspect of this legislation is its attempt to substantially limit carbon emissions in the U.S. What are some of the measures that are aimed at doing this?Stephen Byrd Decarbonization is a major area of focus, just as you said, for the IRA and this shows up in many ways. I'd say the most direct way would be providing a number of incentives to increase the growth of wind and solar. So, we'll see a great deal of growth there as a result. However, there are other elements that are really interesting. One example is support for nuclear. I think the drafters really wanted to ensure that we didn't lose any additional nuclear power plants. Those plants provide obviously zero carbon energy, but they also provide really important grid reliability services so that's helpful. There is also quite a bit of capital for carbon capture, which should reduce the emissions profile of other sectors as well. There's quite a bit of support for electric vehicles that will help with the pace of electrification. And that's kind of a nice double benefit in the sense that if more consumers choose electric vehicles and the grid becomes cleaner then we get a double benefit. So, we're really seeing very broad-based support for decarbonization in the IRA.Michael Zezas Now, one of the methods here to incentivize decarbonization is through tax credits. What are some of these tax credits? How do they work?Stephen Byrd We have a lot of tax credits in this IRA for what I think of as wholesale players, that is the big clean energy developers. There are tax credits for wind and solar that get extended well into the next decade. We have a new tax credit for energy storage. We have tax credits that have been enhanced for carbon capture and utilization, which is very exciting because that's at a level needed to incent quite a bit of investment in carbon capture. We have a new very large tax credit for green hydrogen. That's great, because today hydrogen is made in a process called ‘gray hydrogen’ that does have quite a high carbon profile. So, a variety of tax credits essentially at the wholesale level or at the developer level, but also that could benefit consumers as well, such as on electric vehicles and those are quite sizable as well.Michael Zezas Now these tax credits and the other efforts in the Inflation Reduction Act aimed at carbon reduction, they represent a major pickup in spending on clean technologies. Can you give us some perspective on that? And is the industry ready to supply all the equipment and labor needed to make this a reality?Stephen Byrd I think what we're seeing with many technologies here in clean energy is that the demand is starting to grow very rapidly. Now the industry is really pushing very hard to keep pace, essentially. The limit on growth for some of our companies is really down to people. That is, how many people can they hire and train. So, for some of those companies, that growth rate caps out at about 25% per year. You know, that's quite good and we'll see that continue for many years. I think we're going to see a lot of increased efforts on education. And you'll see also within the IRA a lot of language around prevailing wage and ensuring that employees get paid a fair wage. On top of that, though, there are some areas of shortage. So in energy storage, for example, demand is very high across the U.S., not just for electric vehicles, but also to help with grid reliability. A good example would be in Texas during the winter storm, parts of the Texas grid failed and quite a few people were without power during very cold conditions. That was very challenging. And as a result, a lot of customers, both individuals and corporations, want to have storage. There are limits, there is a shortage essentially globally in terms of energy storage, and that's going to take years to address. That said, the IRA does make important headway in terms of providing incentives and financial support to bring a lot of manufacturing back to the U.S. so we have better control of manufacturing. We'll be able to scale up more quickly and also avoid a lot of the logistics and supply chain issues that have plagued some of our companies that have dealt with very complex and challenging global supply chains.Michael Zezas So, for investors, then, what's the takeaway? Is this perhaps a boon for the clean tech sector, or is it maybe too much, too soon?Stephen Byrd I think this is a boon for not just the clean tech sector. I think ultimately this is going to translate into much more rapid adoption of clean energy, which fundamentally is very much a deflationary force. So what we're going to see is further innovation, further manufacturing in the U.S. That means more jobs in the U.S, that means a faster pace of innovation and a faster rate of cost reduction. So that does look to us to be a virtuous cycle that's going to benefit not just the decarbonization of the U.S. economy but benefit the consumer and provide jobs as well.Michael Zezas Stephen, thanks for taking the time to talk.Stephen Byrd Great speaking with you, Michael.Michael Zezas As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

While stocks and bonds have rallied since June, investors should be asking if this bear market rebound is a sign that economic growth is on its way up, or if there are negative earning revisions yet to come.-----Transcript-----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, August 22nd at 11 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it. Taking a few weeks off can sometimes provide a fresh perspective on markets needed at times like today. The fact that it happens to be August, the most popular time for vacations of the year, can also play into that perspective. Over the past 6 weeks many financial markets have had a strong rebound. As an example, both stocks and bonds have rallied sharply from their June lows. The question that equity investors must ask themselves is how much of the rally in stocks is due to the fall in interest rates versus a real improvement in the prospects of a soft landing in the economy? For better or worse our view has remained consistent since April that the primary concern for stocks was no longer inflation, or the Fed's reaction to deal with it, but rather the outlook for growth. In May, the consensus moved strongly into our camp, with the cries for a recession reaching a fever pitch in June. Equity markets became very oversold and the stage was set for a powerful rally. Truth be told, this rally exceeded our expectations for a normal counter trend bear market rally. However, in order to set the stage for the next leg lower, the rally needed to be convincing enough to change the very bearish sentiment to outright bullish. Based on what I have seen in the press and from our peers around the street, that sentiment has flipped with many declaring the end of the bear market and the increasing likelihood of new all time highs as soon as later this year. While there are some strong indications that inflation has peaked from a rate of change standpoint, it's too soon for the Fed to declare victory in our view. In other words, the rising hope for the Fed to pivot away from rising rates or curtailing its balance sheet reduction remains optimistic. Nevertheless, this is the primary justification for why equity markets have rallied and why it can continue. However, even if that were true, there are very few data points suggesting we have reached a trough in growth, either economically or from an earnings growth standpoint. In fact, our growth is suggesting the opposite, with earnings revision breadth accelerating to the downside, along with our other leading indicators. To put it more bluntly, rarely have we been more confident that consensus growth expectations for earnings over the next 12 months are too high. More importantly, the equity market almost never rallies if forward earnings estimates are falling, unless the valuation is completely washed out. In June, one could have credibly argued valuations were discounting a sharp decline in growth and the risk of a recession. At the lows the forward price earnings ratio reached 15.4x and was down almost 30% from the end of last year. At 15.4x is almost exactly our year end target price earnings multiple at the beginning of this year based on our view that the Fed would have to tighten aggressively to combat inflation. The problem with assuming 15.4x was a washed out level for valuations is that all of the degradation was a result of higher interest rates, while the equity risk premium remained flat to down over that time frame. In other words, at no time did the price earnings multiple discount a material slowdown in growth. Now, with the price earnings multiple exceeding 18x last week, valuations are inappropriate if one agrees with our view that earnings estimates are too high. On Friday, stocks reversed lower and that seems to be carrying into this week. Many are once again blaming the Fed and perhaps acknowledging its work in fighting inflation remains unfinished. We agree. However, with price earnings multiples still 17.4x as I record this podcast, valuations are not discounting that resolve, nor is it discounting the negative earnings revisions still to come. The bottom line stocks have experienced a classic bear market rebound after having reached a near record oversold condition on many metrics. With the Fed still very much in the picture and earnings estimates likely to fall further, equity markets are almost as unattractive as they were at the beginning of the year. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcast app. It helps more people to find the show.

In the past two years Emerging Market sovereign debt has seen rising risks given increased borrowing, higher interest rates and a greater number of defaults, leading investors to wonder, are we heading towards an EM debt crisis? Important note regarding economic sanctions. This research references country/ies which are generally the subject of comprehensive or selective sanctions programs administered or enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the European Union and/or by other countries and multi-national bodies. Any references in this report to entities, debt or equity instruments, projects or persons that may be covered by such sanctions are strictly incidental to general coverage of the relevant Russian economic sector as germane to its overall financial outlook, and should not be read as recommending or advising as to any investment activities in relation to such entities, instruments or projects. Users of this report are solely responsible for ensuring that their investment activities in relation to any sanctioned country/ies are carried out in compliance with applicable sanctions.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the market. I'm Simon Waever, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of EM Sovereign Credit Strategy. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today, I'll address the possibility of an emerging markets debt crisis. It's Friday, August 19th, 12p.m. in New York.The most frequent question I get from investors right now is, 'are we heading towards an EM debt crisis?' It's not unreasonable to ask this. After all, a lot of the ingredients that led to prior EM debt crises are in place today. First, EM countries have taken on a lot of debt, not just since the pandemic, but in the past ten years, meaning most countries are at or near multi-decade highs. Second, global central banks are quickly hiking rates, with the Fed in particular a key driver in tightening global financial conditions. Third, which is related, is that servicing and rolling over that debt has suddenly become much more expensive, driven not just by a stronger dollar, but also much higher bond yields. And then fourth, which is perhaps the most important one, is that today we are as close to an extended sudden stop in flows to EM as we have been in a long time. That means that many countries have lost access to markets, so that even if they were willing to pay up to borrow, there's just no demand.Markets are telling us the risks are rising as well. Outside of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 pandemic, you'd have to go back 20 years to find EM sovereign credit spreads trading as wide. And high yield credit spreads are much wider than investment grade spreads, so markets are differentiating already.Finally, just looking at actual sovereign defaults and restructurings, they're already higher than in recent history. We have had six in the past two years and now already three in 2022, namely Russia, Belarus and Sri Lanka.From here, there are likely to be more defaults, but three key points are worth making. One, the countries at risk now are very different to the prior debt crisis in EM. Two, none would be systemic defaults. And three, they would not all happen at the same time.Large countries like Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia don't seem to be at risk of defaulting. They are completely different to what they were 20 to 30 years ago. They're now inflation targeters, have mostly free-floating currencies, meaning imbalances are less likely to build up, have large effects reserves and have the majority of that debt in local currency.Instead, the concern now is mostly with the newer issuers that benefited from the abundant global liquidity in the past ten years. And by this I mean the frontier credits, many of which are in Africa, but also in Asia and Central America. And then it's key to actually look at who has upcoming Eurobond maturities, as not all countries do. But even among these credits, the International Monetary Fund stands ready to help and there are FX reserves that can be used. So, it's not clear to me that you're going to see multiple defaults and even if you were to see two or more defaults among them, they're very unlikely to be systemic.But, all in, while there's no denying that EM countries are facing debt sustainability issues, let's not paint all EM with the same brush. The nuances should make for some exciting years ahead for sovereign debt analysts and should also open up the potential for significant alpha within the asset class.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes a variety of provisions regarding tax policy, so how will these policy changes affect corporations and what should investors be aware of? Head of Public Policy Research and Municipal Strategy Michael Zezas and Head of Global Valuation, Accounting, and Tax Todd Castagno discuss.-----Transcript-----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of Public Policy Research and Municipal Strategy. Todd Castagno: And I'm Todd Castagno, Morgan Stanley's Head of Global Valuation, Accounting and Tax Research. Michael Zezas: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market we'll focus on what you need to know about some significant changes to tax policy from the Inflation Reduction Act. It's Thursday, August 18th, at noon in New York. Michael Zezas: President Biden has now signed the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, into law. As our listeners may remember, last week we discussed the potential impact of the IRA on the U.S. economic outlook. Today we want to dig deeper into a specific area of this new law, namely taxes. So Todd, there's been some criticism of the IRA with regard to the 15% minimum tax on the largest corporations. What are your thoughts on this provision? Todd Castagno: Thanks, Michael. Let's first discuss how this 15% minimum corporate tax operates. So the law now intends for large corporations that earn on average of $1 billion or more over a three year period to pay at least 15%. Now, what's important is what is that profit base to tax that 15% and its derived from financial statement net income with certain adjustments. That is why this tax is commonly referred to as a book tax, that is primarily based on book or financial statement measures of income. So if you peel back a few layers of what's driving the criticism, there's a recognition that this tax effectively just overrides incentives or timing differences that Congress consciously enacted. Critics will say that Congress should just fix certain areas of the tax codes directly. However, the politics of fixing specific policies directly can be extremely difficult politically. The other point of criticism is that taxing authority has effectively been ceded to independent accounting standards setters. Changes in the accounting rules may now affect changes in minimum tax revenue. There have been some concerns from investors over earnings quality as the tail now wags the dog where accounting can now drive the economics. So those are just a few of the criticisms. It's also important to note, Michael, that we've had a version of a book tax back in the 1980s, so it would be interesting to see longevity of this tax as that tax only lasted effectively 2 to 3 years. Michael Zezas: And another piece of the legislation is a softening and reduction of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax on advanced manufacturing activities such as automation, computation, software and networking. What can you tell us about that? Todd Castagno: Good question. When Senator Sinema announced a carve out for advanced manufacturing, we were scratching our heads of what that actually meant. Well, it's quite broader and it really affects most manufacturing. So what the adjustment is, is you start with book income and you'd make an adjustment to basically replace what we book for accounting depreciation with tax depreciation. And so tax depreciation is usually front run it and it's usually accelerated versus book. So what that will mean for manufacturers is that their minimum tax base will be lower given this adjustment. Michael Zezas: And also in the IRA is a 1% stock buyback tax for companies that are repurchasing their own shares. Todd, is that likely to impact corporate profits or change behavior in a meaningful way? Todd Castagno: Overall, we don't believe at a 1% level this will materially affect the level of buybacks or corporate behavior. You could see a modest tilt towards dividends as a more preferential form of capital return. You could also see perhaps some buybacks being pulled forward into 22 as the law takes effect in 2023. You know, we think the bigger risk is that 1% rate skews higher in the future if a future Congress needs more revenue. We should also note that it's net of issuances, so that's important. A lot of firms have large amounts of stock based compensation and they repurchase their shares in order to prevent dilution. And so effect of that issuance will also really reduce the amount of the buyback tax. Michael Zezas: And finally, let's talk about tax credits. Which tax credits stand out to you from this bill and how material might their impact be? Todd Castagno: I think this one is in the eye of the beholder. The reality is that the IRA increased credits significantly across the board for clean energy investment, whether that's electric vehicles, decarbonization. Also, the structure of many of those credits has evolved where they can be monetized more upfront, whether that's the refund ability or transferability to other taxpayers. So I think the magnitude of the investment, the magnitude of the credits, outweighs any specific credit or provision. Michael Zezas: Todd, thanks for taking the time to talk. Todd Castagno: Great speaking with you, Michael. Michael Zezas: As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show. 

While shifts in stock and bond correlation have increased the volatility of a 60:40 portfolio, investors may still find some balance in diversification. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Chief Investment Officer for Wealth Management Lisa Shalett discuss.-----Transcript-----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley Research.Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.Andrew Sheets: And on part two of this special episode, we'll be continuing our discussion of the foundational 60/40 portfolio.  It's Wednesday, August 17th at 4:00 PM in London.Lisa Shalett: And it's 11:00 AM here in New York.Andrew Sheets: So Lisa, I know the positive correlations won't lift the 60:40 portfolio’s volatility too much, but would you say that investors have been inclined to accept more equity risk in recent decades because the cushioning effect of fixed income and this idea that if anything goes wrong, the Fed will kind of ride to the rescue and support markets?Lisa Shalett: Yes I do. And I think, you know, part of the issue has been that we've been not only in a regime of falling interest rates, which has supported overall equity valuations, but we've lived in a period of suppressed volatility with regard to the direction of policy. We've been in this forward guidance regime, if you will, from the central bank where not only was the central bank holding down the cost of capital but they were telegraphing the speed and order of magnitude and pace of things which took a huge amount of volatility out of the market for both stocks and bonds and permitted risk taking. I mean, my goodness, you know, when was the last time in history that we had such negative “term premiums” in the pricing of bonds? That was a part of this function of this idea that the Fed's going to tell us exactly what they're going to do and there's this Fed put, and any time something unexpected happens, they will, you know, “come to save the day.”And so I think we're at the beginning, we're literally in my humble opinion in the first or second innings of the market fundamentally wrapping their heads around what it means to no longer be in a forward guidance regime. Where the central bank, in their ambitions to normalize policy to crush inflation have to inherently be more data dependent and data dependency is inherently more volatile. And so I do think over time we are going to see these equity risk premiums, which, you know, as we've discussed earlier, had gotten quite compressed, widen back out to something that is more normal for the amount of risk that equities genuinely represent.Andrew Sheets: And Lisa, I think that's such a great point about the predictability of monetary policy cause you're right, you know, that's another interesting similarity with the period prior to 2000. That period was a period of a much more unpredictable Fed between, you know, 1920 and the year 2000 where in more recent years, the Fed has become very predictable. So, that's another good thing that we should, as investors, think about is does that shifting predictability of Fed action, does the rising uncertainty that the Fed is facing, you know, is that also an important driver of this stock bond correlation. So boiling it all down, how are you talking about all of this to clients to help them reposition portfolios to navigate risk and potential return?Lisa Shalett: I think at the end of the day you know, the most important thing that we're sitting with clients and talking about is that these fundamental building blocks of asset allocations, stocks and bonds, while they may correlate to one another differently, while they're each inherent volatilities may move up and therefore the volatility of that 60:40 portfolio may readjust some, the reality is, is that they’re still very important building blocks that play different roles in the portfolio that are both still required. So, you know, your stocks are still going to be that asset class that allows you to capture unexpected growth in the economy and in the overall profit stream, while fixed income and your rates market is still going to be that opportunity to cushion, if you will, disappointments in growth.As we know that they, come over the course of a cycle. In that regard, as we look to this repricing of interest rates and what it may mean, we are encouraging our clients to look much more deliberately, actively, at being diversified across styles, across factors, across market capitalizations because these dynamics are changing. If we look back over the last 13 years, because the narrative around falling interest rates and Fed forward guidance and low volatility, and these correlations, these very stable correlations, and everything's going our way, you didn't need to look very far beyond just owning that passive S&P 500 index. Now, as things begin to normalize and get more inherently volatile and idiosyncratic, we look at where there may be, “value” in the traditional factor sense, to look down the market capitalization scheme to smaller and mid-cap stocks, to look at more cyclical oriented stocks that may be responding to this higher interest rate, higher inflation regimes. And so we're encouraging maximum levels of diversification within these building blocks and very active management of riskAndrew Sheets: Lisa as always, thanks for taking the time to talk.Lisa Shalett: It's my pleasure, Andrew.Andrew Sheets: And as a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

In the current era of tighter Fed policy, the status quo of stock and bond correlation has changed, calling the foundational 60:40 portfolio into question. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Chief Investment Officer for Wealth Management Lisa Shalett discuss.-----Transcript-----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley Research.Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.Andrew Sheets: And on part one of this special episode, we'll be discussing the foundational 60/40 stock bond portfolio. In an era of tighter policy, is a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds fundamentally broken? It's Tuesday, August 16th at 4:00 PM in London.Lisa Shalett: And it's 11:00 AM here in New York.Andrew Sheets: Lisa, it's so good to talk to you again. So, you know, one of the most important, fundamental building blocks of asset allocation is the so-called 60/40 portfolio, a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and both of us have been writing about that this year because this strategy of having diversified stocks and bonds worked unusually well for the 40 years up through 2021, but this year has suffered a real historical reversal, seeing some of the worst returns for this diversified balanced strategy we've seen in 40 or 50 years. So when you think about these dynamics, when you think about the historically poor performance, can you give some context of what's been happening here and what our listeners should make of it?Lisa Shalett: Sure, absolutely. I think as we know, we've gone through this 13-year period through the pandemic when the narrative was very much dominated by Federal Reserve intervention repression and keeping down of interest rates and in fact, falling interest rates, that produced financial market returns both for stocks and for bonds. But as we know, entering 2022, that narrative that was so concentrated on the direction of interest rates, you know, faced a major pivot from the Federal Reserve itself who, as we know, was facing an inflation fight which meant that they were going to have to move the federal funds rate up pretty significantly. The implication of that was pretty devastating for both stocks and bonds, that combined 60/40 portfolio delivered aggregate returns of about -12 to -13% on average that's the performance for that diversified portfolio benchmark in over 50 years. But again, we have to remember a lot of that performance was coming from a starting point where both stocks and bonds had been extraordinarily valued with those valuations premised on a continuation of Federal Reserve policy that unfortunately because of inflation has had to changeAndrew Sheets: Lisa I'm so glad you mentioned that starting point of valuations because, you know, it matters, I think in two really important ways. One, it helps us maybe understand better what's been happening this year, but also, you know, usually when prices fall, and this year prices are still down considerably from where they started, that means better valuations and better returns going forward. So, you know, could you just give a little bit more context of you and your team run a lot of estimates for what asset classes can return potentially over longer horizons. You know, maybe what that looked like for a 60/40 portfolio at the start of this year, when, as you mentioned, both stocks and bonds were pretty richly valued, and then how that's been developing as the year has progressed.Lisa Shalett: Yeah. So, fantastic question. And, you know, we came into 2022 quite frankly, on a strategic horizon given where valuations were, not very excited about either asset class. You know for bonds, we were looking for maybe 0-2% or somewhat below coupon, because of the pressures of repricing on bonds. And for stocks we were looking for something in the, you know, 4-5% range, which was significantly below what historical long term capital market assumptions, you know, might expect for many institutional clients who benchmark themselves off of a 7.5 or 8% return ambition. So, when we entered this bear market, this kind of ferocious selloff, as we noted, from January through June, there were many folks who were hoping that perhaps valuations and forward looking expectations of returns were improving. Importantly, however, what we've seen is that hasn't been the case because what you have to do when you're thinking about valuation is you've gotta look at stock valuations relative to the level of interest rates.And we're now in a scenario where, you know, the terminal value for the US economy may be something very different than it was and that means somewhat lower valuations. So, you know, if I had to put a number on it right now, my expectations for equity returns going forward from the current mark to market is really no better, unfortunately, than perhaps where it was in January. For bonds on the other hand, we've made some progress. And so to me, you know, I, I could see our estimates on bonds being a little bit more constructive than where they were with the 10 year yield somewhere in the, in the 2.8 zip code. Lisa Shalett: So Andrew we've talked about the stock bond correlation as keying off the direction of inflation and the path of Fed policy. With both of those changing, do you view a positive correlation as likely over the longer term?Andrew Sheets: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Lisa. So I think this issue of stock bond correlation is, is really interesting and, and gets a lot of attention for, for good reasons. And then, I think, can also be a little bit misinterpreted. So the reason the correlation is important is, I think, probably obvious to the listeners, if you have a diversified portfolio of assets, you want them to kind of not all move together. That's the whole point of diversification. You want your assets to go up and down on different days, and that smooths the overall return. Now, you know, interestingly for a lot of the last hundred years, the stock bond correlation was positive. Stock and bond prices tended to move in the same direction, which means stock and bond yields tended to move in the opposite direction. So higher yields meant lower stock prices.That was the history for a lot of time, kind of prior to 2000. The reason I think that happened was because inflation was the dominant fear of markets over a lot of that period and inflation was very volatile. And so higher yields generally meant a worsening inflation backdrop, which was bad for stock prices and lower bond yields tended to mean inflation was getting back under control, and that was better for stocks. Now, what's interesting is in the 90s that dynamic really kinda started to change. And after 2000, after the dot-com bubble burst, the fear really turned to growth. The market became a lot less concerned about inflationary pressure, but a lot more concerned about growth. And that meant that when yields were rising, the market saw that as growth being better. So the thing they were afraid of was getting less bad, which was better for stock prices.So, you had this really interesting flip of correlation where once inflation was tamed really in the 90s, the markets started to see higher yields, meaning better growth rather than higher inflation, which meant that stocks and bonds tend to have a negative correlation. Their prices tend to more often move in opposite directions. And as you alluded to, that really created this golden age of stock bond diversification that created this golden age of 60/40 portfolios, because both of these assets were delivering positive returns, but they were delivering them at different times. And so offsetting and cushioning each other's price movements, which is really, you know, the ideal of anybody trying to invest for the long run and, and diversify a portfolio. So that's changed this year. It's been very apparent this year that both stock and bond prices have gone down and gone down together in a pretty significant way.But I think as we look forward, we also shouldn't overstate this change. You know, I think your point, Lisa, about just how expensive things were at the start of the year is really important. You know, anytime an asset is very expensive, it is much more vulnerable to dropping and given that both stocks and bonds were both expensive at the same time and both very expensive at the same time, you know, their dropping together I think was, was also a function of their valuation as much of anything else. So, I think going forward, it makes sense to assume kind of a middle ground. You know, I don't think we are going to have the same negative correlation we enjoyed over the last, you know, 15 years, but I also don't think we're going back to the very positive correlations we had, you know, kind of prior to the 1990s.And so, you know, I think for investors, we should think about that as less diversification they get to enjoy in a portfolio, but that doesn't mean it's no diversification. And given that bonds are so much less volatile than stocks, you know, bonds might have a third of the volatility of the stock market, if we look at kind of volatility over the last five years. That still is some pretty useful ballast in a portfolio. That still means a large chunk of the portfolio is moving around a lot less and helping to stabilize the overall asset pool. Andrew Sheets: Thanks for listening. Tomorrow I’ll be continuing my conversation with Lisa Shalett, and as a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

Based on July reports inflation may finally be cooling down, and the labor market remains strong, so how might this new data influence policy changes in the September FOMC meeting?-----Transcript-----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ellen Zentner, Chief U.S. Economist for Morgan Stanley Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be catching you up to speed on U.S. inflation, the labor market and our outlook for Fed policy. It's Monday, August 15th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Let me start with some encouraging news. If we look at the July readings for both the Consumer Price Index data and the Producer Price Index, inflation finally appears to be cooling. And that should take some pressure off the Fed to deliver another 75 basis point hike in September. So that's the good news. However, inflation is still elevated and that suggests the Fed still has a lot of work to do, even if there's a reduced need for a third consecutive 75. We're forecasting a 50 basis point hike at the September and November meetings and 25 basis points in December for a peak interest rate of 3.625%. Okay, let's look a bit more under the hood. July CPI on both headline and core measures surprised to the downside, and the PPI came in softer as well. Together, the reports point to a lower than previously anticipated inflation print that will be released on August 26th. Now, the recent blowout July employment report led markets to price a high probability of a 75 basis point hike. But the inflation data then came in lower than expected and pushed the probability back toward 50 basis points. Based on the outlook for declining energy prices, we think headline inflation should continue to come down and do so quite quickly. However, core inflation pressures remain uncomfortably high and are likely to persist. For the Fed signs of a turn around in headline inflation are helpful and are already showing up in lower household inflation expectations. However, trends in core are more indicative of the trajectory for underlying inflation pressures, and Fed officials came out in droves last week to stress that the steep path for rates remains the base case. Sticky core inflation is a key reason why we expect the Fed to hold at 3.625% Fed funds, before making the first cut toward normalizing policy in December 2023. Now, let me speak to July's surprising employment report. As the data showed, the labor market remains strong, even though some of the data flow has begun to diverge in recent months. Leading up to the recent release, the market had taken the softening in employment in the household survey, so that is the employment measure that just goes out to households and polls them, were you employed, were you not, were you part time, were you full time, and generally because that's been very weak, the market was taking it as a potential harbinger of a turn in the payrolls data, payrolls data are collected from companies that just ask each company how many folks are on your payrolls. Household survey employment was again softer in July, coming in at 179,000 versus 528,000 for the payroll survey. Now, this seems like a sizable disparity, but it's actually not unusual for the household and payroll surveys to diverge over shorter periods of time. And these near term divergences largely reflect methodological differences. But what's interesting here and worth noting is that these differences in data likely reflect a shift in the form of employment. While the economy saw a large increase in self-employment in the early stages of the pandemic, the data now suggest workers may be returning to traditional payroll jobs, potentially because of higher nominal wages and better opportunities. If the economy is increasingly pulling workers out of self-employment and into traditional payroll jobs, similar pull effects are likely reaching workers currently out of the labor force. And this brings me to one of our key expectations for the next year and a half, which is a continued increase in labor force participation, in particular driven by prime age workers age 25 to 54. Higher wages, better job opportunities and rising cost of living will likely bring workers back into the labor force, even as overall job growth slows. Fed researchers, in fact, have recently documented that a delayed recovery in labor force participation is quite normal, and that's something we think is likely to play out again in this cycle. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today. 

As inflation persists, economic concerns such as recession rise, and consumer spending patterns begin to shift, is there any evidence to suggest consumers are already trading down to value and discount products? U.S. Softlines Analyst Kimberly Greenberger and Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst Simeon Gutman discuss.-----Transcript-----Kimberly Greenberger: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Kimberly Greenberger, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Softlines Analyst. Simeon Gutman: And I'm Simeon Gutman, Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst. Kimberly Greenberger: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll be discussing shifting consumer spending patterns amid persistent inflation and concerns about the economy. It's Friday, August 12th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Kimberly Greenberger: As our listeners are no doubt aware, many retail segments were big pandemic beneficiaries with record sales growth and margins for 2+ years. But now that spending on goods is normalizing from high levels and consumers are facing record high inflation and worrying about a potential recession, we're starting to see signs of what's called "trade down", which is a consumer migration from more expensive products to value priced products. So Simeon, in your broad coverage, are you seeing any evidence that consumers are trading down already? Simeon Gutman: We're seeing it in two primary ways. First, we're seeing some reversion away from durable, high ticket items away to consumable items. And the pace of consumption of some of these high ticket durable items is waning and pretty rapidly. Some of these are items that were very strong during the pandemic, electronics, some sporting goods items, home furnishings, to name a few. So these items we're seeing material sales deceleration as one form of trade down. As another in the food retail sector, we're definitely seeing signs of consumers spending less or finding ways to spend less inside the grocery store. They can do that by trading down from national brands to private brands, buying less expensive alternative, buying frozen instead of fresh and even in the meat counter, buying less expensive forms of protein. So we're seeing it manifest in those two ways. What is the situation in softlines, Kimberly? Is your coverage vulnerable to trade down risk? Kimberly Greenberger: Absolutely. In softlines retail, which is apparel, footwear, accessories retail, these are discretionary categories. Yes, there's sort of a minimum level of spending that's necessary because clothing is part of the essentials, food, shelter, clothing. But Americans' closets are full and they're full because last year there was a great deal of overspending on the apparel category. So where we have seen trade down impact our sector this year, Simeon, is we have seen consumers budget cutting and moving away from some of those more discretionary categories like apparel especially. We just have not yet seen any benefits to some of the more value oriented retailers that we would expect to see in the future if this behavior persists. Simeon Gutman: So when we're thinking about the context of our collaborative work with other Morgan Stanley sector analysts around trade down risks, what do you hear, Kimberly, about the impact on segments such as household products and restaurants? Kimberly Greenberger: We have found most fascinating, actually, the study of those real high frequency purchases. Because in order to understand how consumer behavior is changing at the margin, we think it's most important to look at what consumers were spending on last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago as a better indication of what they're likely to spend on for the next three or six months. How that behavior has been changing is that on those of very high frequency purchases like the daily tobacco purchase or the daily food at home purchase, as you mentioned, is that there is trade down from higher priced brands and products into more value oriented brands and products. The same thing is happening in fast food. Another category that we consume on a somewhat more frequent basis than, for example, eating in casual dining restaurants where we're sitting down for a meal. So now we've got a good number of months of evidence that this is, in fact, happening, and that gives us more conviction that it's likely to continue through the second half of the year. So Simeon, in your view, what parts of retail are the likely winners and laggards should this trade down behavior persist and broaden out, particularly if a recession did materialize? Simeon Gutman: So in the event of a recession, I think the typical answers here are a little bit easier to identify. The two big beneficiaries, the channel beneficiaries, would be the dollar slash discount stores and then secondarily, off price. First, the dollar and discount stores, they are already seeing some initial signs of trade down and that is mostly in the consumable area. That is the place where the consumer feels the pinch immediately. The other piece of it is the discretionary spend. The longer these conditions persist, high inflation and potential other pressures on the consumer, then you'll start to see a more pronounced trade down and shift of discretionary purchases. And that's where off price plays a role. Kimberly Greenberger: Simeon, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. Simeon Gutman: Great speaking with you, Kimberly. Kimberly Greenberger: As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people to find the show.