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2 days ago

Next Leg of the Bull Market?

A changing macro backdrop is creating new opportunities across the equity market. Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson looks at what's driving the shift and where it may lead next. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll discuss why I think the broadening out in equity markets can continue. It's Monday, July 6th at 11:30 am in New York. So, let’s get after it. Let’s talk about a market dynamic that’s becoming harder to ignore. The broadening trade is back, and it’s gaining momentum partly because one of the most crowded areas of the market – Semiconductors – is finally starting to lose some of its own. To be clear, this doesn’t mean the AI cycle is over. However, trends don’t move in straight lines, and leadership can ebb and flow; especially if there are fundamental reasons supporting it. In fact, we’ve seen this happen several times already over the past couple of years with the hyperscalers and semiconductors ebbing and flowing. This is based on positioning, the rate of change on expectations for capex and the returns on that capex. Meanwhile, our broadening call goes back to last November. Back then, we argued the economy had entered a new expansion after the rolling recession ended in the April of 2025. That view was based on a classic early-cycle setup where revenue growth returns to companies that had become cost efficient. That is the definition of operating leverage and that always leads to better than expected earnings growth – the core differentiation to our original outlook this year. The market started to discount that broadening late last year and into early this year. Then, the Iran war interrupted it. Oil prices surged, and the bond market went from pricing Fed cuts to pricing hikes, and investors crowded back into the obvious AI capex winners – especially Semiconductors. That made sense for a while. The revisions in Semis were spectacular. But when earnings revisions breadth gets pressed against historical extremes, the question becomes less about whether the story is good and more about whether the rate of change can keep improving. That’s a much higher bar. And over the past few weeks, the market seems to be asking that question with semiconductor stocks fading. The underperformance in the hyperscalers was probably the first signal. Semis depend on hyperscaler capex, so when the spenders start to lag the beneficiaries, that divergence can’t last forever. It usually ends up reconciling with hyperscalers’ tempering capex guidance or indicating they are more focused on getting a return on that investment. META’s announcement last week that it would begin selling excess capacity to outside customers fits right into that discussion. It doesn’t kill the AI buildout, but it does change the market’s perception of how linear that buildout will be. What matters for investors is how they should trade it. First, the market should continue to broaden out. Second, we continue to favor Consumer Discretionary Goods, Transports, Regional Banks, and now Biotech as part of that rotation. Discretionary Goods remains the cleanest expression, in my view, because the wallet-share shift from services back to goods is underway, goods pricing is improving, oil prices have fallen, and earnings revisions are strengthening. Transports are also showing better revisions, and Regional Banks still benefit from the broader recovery, improving loan growth dynamics and our call for a re-steepening of the yield curve. Biotech deserves more attention here, too. It is also one of the most rate-sensitive areas of the market, and our work shows it has historically done very well in falling-rate regimes. If the market’s policy expectations are too hawkish – and I think they are – then Biotech offers an attractive risk-reward setup, particularly with an M&A cycle that continues to build. The Fed is part of this story as well. Chair Warsh’s comments last week that inflation risks have come down should matter, especially after the weaker labor data that came out Thursday. The market had become too hawkish on policy. If falling energy prices and contained core inflation allow the Fed to stay on hold rather than hike, that should help lower rate expectations and further support broader leadership in equity markets. Bottom line, the major averages may stay choppy because Semis are a large part of the index and crowded. But, the message is improving beneath the surface. The broader market performance indicates a broader economic and earnings recovery may just be beginning. The best news is that this view is still out of consensus, which means the opportunity for investors remains significant. Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

2 days ago

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5 min
5 days ago

America’s Frontier-Market Origin Story

As America nears its 250th birthday, our Global Head of Fixed Income Andrew Sheets looks back at the early republic as a volatile frontier market, and what its path from credit risks to durable institutions can teach investors today. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, markets are closed for the observance of 4th of July. But as America approaches its 250th anniversary, we take a look back to look forward at early America as a frontier market. It's Friday, July 3rd at 9am in Seattle. If you were a global investor at the end of the 18th century looking for a stable, low-risk home for your capital, it would have been entirely reasonable to avoid the newly minted United States of America. By the standards of modern finance, the young republic was not a developed market in waiting. It was a frontier economy: volatile, debt-burdened, institutionally fragile, resource-rich, politically combustible, and astonishingly unequal. Its currency had collapsed. Its public finances were suspect. Its citizens resisted taxation, and its growth prospects were extraordinary. In 1810, 70 percent of the country was under the age of 25. That is one of the revelations of Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty, which focuses on the early days of the new country from 1789 to 1815. Wood's America is not the marble republic of statues and myth. It is speculative, messy, and full of motion. The United States succeeded not by escaping the dysfunctions that we associate with emerging or frontier markets, but by turning them into sources of strength. Start with capital. Early America needed it desperately. Roads, canals, land purchases, and government all required credit, and there was never enough of it. The country was rich in land and poor in liquidity, a classic emerging market mismatch. What the young country couldn't borrow or invent, it misappropriated, lifting intellectual property from its former masters in Britain. What Alexander Hamilton understood was the importance of confidence given this challenge; that debts would be honored, contracts enforced, and taxes, however unpopular, collected. His financial program was an attempt to solve the emerging market problem before the phrase existed. How to persuade investors that a new state, born in revolution and nearly bankrupted by war, could be trusted. To Hamilton, public credit was the foundation of independence. To many Jeffersonians, however, this system looked like an attempt to smuggle a British financial order back into the country that had just fought to expel it. The early republic's debates over debt, banks, speculation, and taxation sound contemporary because the underlying question is perennial in frontier markets: Can a society embrace credit and foreign capital without being captured by it? The U.S. was not starting from zero. It inherited legal traditions, habits of self-government, and a culture of contract and property. Those foundations gave confidence that disputes could be adjudicated, debts pursued, and rules would not be arbitrary. Early America was risky, but it was not lawless. And still, it did not go smoothly. There was no Federal Reserve, FDIC, or even a uniform national currency. Business was conducted with foreign coins, notes issued by private banks, IOUs, and blind optimism. Bank failures were common. In 1808, the Farmers Exchange Bank of Rhode Island issued over $600,000 of notes against less than $90 of gold in its vaults. You almost have to admire the audacity. Yet the same instability that made early America risky also made it unusually open. Land was the country's great asset class, a source of migration, ambition, speculation, and opportunity, at least for white settlers. It also produced bubbles, administrative strain, the expansion of slavery, and the violent dispossession of Native peoples. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 was a risky, leveraged acquisition of distressed real estate, doubling the scale of the American experiment before anyone had quite figured out how the original version was supposed to work. Wood is especially good on the familiar energy unleashed by this world. The engine of U.S. growth was not an aristocracy of polished grandees, but the "middling sort." Shopkeepers, artisans, tavern owners, mechanics, farmers, merchants, and speculators – many convinced that in America, birthright mattered less than hustle. Commentators of the time complained about the degraded press, political polarization, hostility to expertise, and the vulgarity of a society obsessed with getting ahead. None of this sounds especially distant. What saved America from the usual traps of frontier economies was not immaculate stability. It was adaptability. Its constitution was amended. Political power changed hands despite animosity. Bankruptcy laws allowed for failure. Competition was ferocious, and economic power was generally too diffuse to be easily monopolized. The early republic's genius lay less in solving its contradictions than in creating ways to fight over them without destroying the whole. That is a useful lesson for America at 250. We tend to look backwards for reassurance, imagining that the country once possessed a unity, prudence, and institutional solidity that we have since lost. Wood suggests something different, that the United States was turbulent from the start. Its legacy was contested, its finances distrusted, its politics venomous, its expansion intertwined with slavery and Native dispossession, and its future uncertain. Emerging markets become developed markets not because they stop having crises, but because they build credibility through them. They learn which institutions matter, which bargains endure, which debts must be paid, and which moral liabilities compound when deferred. America was not born orderly, rich, or secure. It was born in the mud, financed on fragile credit, driven by speculation, and sustained by an almost irrational confidence in the future. So, enjoy the fireworks – and let them be a reminder that national maturity is not the absence of volatility. It's the capacity to turn that volatility into renewal. A postscript: Gordon S. Wood died in early June of this year. As a professor, author, and one of the preeminent scholars of the American Revolution, he brought fresh insight and deep humanization to the country's founding. For anyone looking for a better understanding of America as it celebrates a big anniversary, we'd wholeheartedly recommend his work Thank you, as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen and also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

5 days ago

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7 min
6 days ago

Investors’ Focus Shifts to Rates and AI

Following meetings across Europe and Asia, our Global Head of Cross-Asset Strategy Research, Serena Tang, discusses two of the main themes on investors' minds: uncertainty around U.S. monetary policy and increasing caution toward AI despite its long-term potential. Serena Tang: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Serena Tang, Global Head of Cross-Asset Strategy Research at Morgan Stanley. And today, I'm bringing you a debrief from my investor meetings across Europe and Asia, and the key debates around AI and the Fed. It's Thursday, July 2nd at 10am in New York. The last two weeks, I have been traveling in Europe and Asia to meet with investors to discuss Morgan Stanley's latest views. Two themes dominated nearly every room I walked into. The first is the Federal Reserve and monetary policy path in the U.S. Many investors had interpreted Chair Kevin Warsh's June FOMC meeting, his first at the helm, as unambiguously hawkish. What market investors at my meetings pointed out is that [the] Fed's Summary of Economic Projections – commonly shortened to SEP, which details policymakers' forecasts for macro metrics like GDP growth, inflation, and the federal funds rate – added a hike in 2026 and pushed out rate cuts, implying more restrictive policy. Now, Morgan Stanley's economists think that hikes implied by SEP at the June FOMC meeting should be interpreted with caution. The projections appeared conditioned on elevated near-term inflation and may not capture the disinflation from a straight reopening. We actually anticipate a lower path for core inflation given a combination of a reversal in travel-related inflation and tariff payback, which lead to our call that the Fed remains on hold through 2026. The second recurring theme in meetings with investors across regions is, unsurprisingly, AI. While in every single meeting investors believe firmly in the secular story of ongoing AI CapEx cycle, there was some unease – especially since AI is now also becoming an inflation story on the macro side and a funding story on the micro side. Chipflation is a new word in town, with markets still debating whether it can be one of the things that derail the AI CapEx cycle. In our economists’ and sector analysts’ views, it's more nuanced. While memory price is up sixfold over the past year, we think chipflation is more likely to reprice and ration AI infrastructure than derail the cycle. AI demand is scaling across three layers at once, more memory per chip, more chips per system, and more systems per cluster, while hyperscalers remain first in the allocation queue. Now, the key risk is CapEx efficiency. Memory is becoming a larger share of the AI system cost, but the cycle, we think, remains intact. As for AI funding needs, the debate with investors has been how much more can it accelerate? It's worth noting that the majority of corporate bond issuance quarter-to-date has been related to funding construction of data centers. Hyperscale’s have been broadening their investor base through non-dollar issuances. They have collectively issued around $25 billion of debt in other currencies like euro, Swiss franc, and the [Japanese yen] in May. Our credit strategy colleagues forecast nearly another $600 billion of AI-related global issuance in 2026; meaning for U.S. IG corporate bonds alone, we expect one trillion of net issuance, a reason for our view that the asset class can underperform this year. With our equity colleagues estimating hyperscaler cash CapEx to surpass $1 trillion in 2027, we expect issuance to accelerate. Bringing it all together, investors globally are all grappling with the same uncertainties around the Fed and AI CapEx, which will likely continue to be key debates to come. But Morgan Stanley's base case view of lower inflation driving the Fed to stay on hold and a strong AI CapEx cycle that remains intact means we recommend investors should still stay constructive on risk assets. Thanks for listening. Let us know what you think by leaving a review. And if you enjoyed the podcast, please share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

6 days ago

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5 min
26 Jun

The Warsh Effect on Mortgages

Although markets may recalibrate to a different policy playbook under the new Fed chair Kevin Warsh, housing could remain in a holding pattern. Our co-heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan explain why. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. James Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: Today, the glow has maybe worn off the championship of the Knicks, so we can talk about the impact of Warsh on the mortgage and housing market. It's Friday, June 26th at 10am in New York. James Egan: If we have to stop talking about the Knicks, we can stop talking about the Knicks. But Jay, I think one of the things, if we take a little bit of a step back in mortgage markets, in housing markets, in fixed income markets more broadly – from the beginning of the year to now, we've gone from the market pricing in 2.5 cuts from the Fed by the end of 2026, to the market pricing in roughly 1.5 hikes. 100 basis point difference in market expectations over the course of the past five and a half months. Now, that's happened at different times, with different levels of velocity and severity. But one of the key talking points we have now is – we have a new Fed chair. We had the first FOMC meeting and his press conference after that last Wednesday. What do you think that means for mortgage markets, for volatility? How are you thinking about this? Jay Bacow: look, Jim, it's a great question, and we've got asked that by a number of different investors. Chair Warsh has been pretty clear that he thinks people should do more of what they're good at and less of what they're not good at. And so, he's felt like the Fed should keep their communication on future guidance relatively short. And so, with less forward guidance from the Fed, the market has more uncertainty, and more uncertainty translates into more volatility. And more volatility is generally bad for the mortgage market, given that investors are short the option to the homeowner to refinance. Furthermore, shifting from expectations of the Fed cutting to expectations of the Fed hiking generally makes it a little bit less favorable environment for investors like banks and overseas investors to come to the mortgage market. James Egan: Alright. Now, we've been on this podcast several times this year where we've talked about, you mentioned banks... We've talked about deregulation. We've talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the GSEs – them buying mortgages, that being constructive for our mortgage view. Is that still the case, or how are you layering that into your thought process? Jay Bacow: now? That's definitely still the case. Those things haven't changed. The deregulation is still flowing through the markets. That longer term should be supportive of bank demand in aggregate, although obviously there are a number of different regulations going through. The GSEs are still forecasted to buy 200 billion mortgages on behalf of President Trump's initiative. So, that's why we're just sort of tactically negative – those technicals are very strong in an environment where there really has not been much supply. Now, some of that supply is because mortgage rates are still in the context of 6.5 percent. Some of that is because with mortgage rates at 6.5 percent, there hasn't been that much housing activity. So, Jim, turning it to you, what is the outlook for the housing market in a world where they are expecting the Fed to hike and rates to stay elevated? James Egan: Right. So, the main thing that we focus on from a housing market perspective is less specifically Fed action and more the 5- and 10-year part of the curve. So, when you start to say something like you're tactically negative mortgage-backed securities here – how can I interpret that from a mortgage rate perspective? Jay Bacow: If we're tactically negative, it's more of a small move than some massive move. And as you said, and we've talked about on this call beforehand, realistically, the mortgage rate is a little bit less dependent on the Fed policy rate and more around the belly of the Treasury curve. And, you know, what's going to happen with the belly of the Treasury curve is going to be dependent on sort of market expectations along with what's happening in the geopolitical situation. So realistically, if you've written down that the mortgage rate is 6.5 percent right now, our view probably doesn't change things too much. James Egan: And if that's the case, then affordability in the housing market, as we've been talking about, is going to continue to be challenged. And what we think that means from a housing activity perspective is any upside that we really thought would have been there gets pretty significantly capped. But the same side of this token – or the other side of this token, if you will, we do think that the current level is well-supported here. There's some level of housing activity that has to occur regardless of where affordability is, and we think we found that. We're at 40-year lows from a turnover perspective. From the fourth quarter of 2023 through now, we've been roughly at the same level. That's 11 consecutive quarters now. We think this is the kind of base level for people that need to transact regardless of where mortgage rates are. So, the more that the rate environment remains challenged, the more that we kind of hang in this low to mid 6 percent mortgage rate environment. We just think that that continues to curtail upside. So, it's a housing market and a housing activity space that continues to very much just remain stuck in neutral. Jay Bacow: Alright. So, if we're in this new environment and the Fed might be hiking, it's not great locally for mortgage valuations. Housing market more broadly, probably kind of stuck in neutral here. Jim, always a pleasure speaking with you. James Egan: And always great speaking to you too, Jay. And to all of our regular listeners, thank you for adding us to your playlist. Let us know what you think wherever you get this podcast and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today. Jay Bacow: And go smash that subscribe button.

26 Jun

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6 min
18 Jun

Inside the AI Debt Surge

As AI investment keeps growing, our strategists Carolyn Campbell and Vishwas Patkar discuss the many ways tech infrastructure gets financed and the opportunities for investors. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Carolyn Campbell: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Carolyn Campbell, Morgan Stanley's Asset-Backed Securities Strategist. Vishwas Patkar: And I'm Vishwas Patkar, Morgan Stanley's Head of U.S. Corporate Credit Strategy. Carolyn Campbell: Today, how fixed income markets are helping fund the AI build-out. It's Thursday, June 18th, at 10am in New York. Let's get right into it, Vishwas. We've both come on this podcast before to talk about how credit markets are financing the AI build-out. And over the last ten months, I think it's fair to say that things are faster, broader, deeper than we perhaps expected initially. This investment now spans investment-grade corporate bonds, high yield loans, and a range of securitized products. From your seat in corporate credit, why does AI infrastructure matter so much, to investors right now? Vishwas Patkar: This is a big talking point in our client discussions. it's also telling that less than a year ago, we wrote about this topic for the first time, identifying a $1.5 trillion financing gap that credit markets could help bridge. At that time, data center debt was not something that investors were really focused on. Yet less than 12 months forward, this, I think, is the number one theme dominating both your and my market. And why it's important, I would say, is across, three key vectors. First, just the scale. So, if you look at overall AI-related debt issuance so far this year, we're close to $250 billion. For the balance of the year, we expect that number to double, so about $500 billion of total AI debt financing for 2026. Increasingly the second vector, I think, is around the complexity of deals. So initially, while AI financing was dominated by vanilla investment-grade corporate bond deals, we are now seeing that broaden out into project finance style deals in the high-yield market. We have seen an uptick in chip financing across the different credit silos. And that's important for investors, as identifying value across these different options does require deep credit expertise. And third, as this investment cycle rolls along, it's also important to be cognizant of risks that are building. Not just from a very broad top-down sense around the demand for compute. But also, what are some of the nuances in these different structures – whether it is in data center construction or is in chip financing that investors will need to monitor. So, it's across these three themes that we think data center debt financing is gaining importance. Carolyn Campbell: Now, the underlying demand for AI infrastructure is very strong. That doesn't necessarily mean that every bond tied to this theme is automatically going to be attractive. And as you mentioned, [$]500 billion of supply for the year; a large amount of complexity between those structures. How should credit investors think about the various risks within these different structures? Vishwas Patkar: So, in investment grade, the story is a bit simpler. So, we have had unsecured hyperscaler bond issuance. We have had issuance from semiconductor names. And then we've had some, what we call, private style data center deals. But the vast majority still comes from hyperscaler investment grade rated bonds. For this market, our focus is less on fundamentals because fundamentals are very strong. And then hyperscaler are some of the more most creditworthy companies that we've seen in the history of the market. Our emphasis more is on just the quantum of supply. So, year to date, we have had north of [$]100 billion of hyperscaler debt in the dollar market. We've had north of [$]50 billion being issued in other currencies. If you look at the overall investment grade market, supply is up almost 25 percent versus last year. That's consistent with our call for a year of record issuance this year. And increasingly, if you look forward and then map these issuance numbers to our CapEx estimates, where we could very much be on track for another record to be hit next year. So, the issue of the investment grade market is not around the fundamentals of the companies or these deals. It's more about the quantum of supply, which we think eventually will test the demand capacity of this market. And our base case for the investment grade space is similar to 1997-1998, where credit was starting to finance the business cycle, spreads widened modestly, and IG could underperform other risk assets. But over a longer time horizon, spreads still look historically very low. Carolyn Campbell: Now, what about further down the credit spectrum into the non-investment grade portion? What about that part of the issuance spectrum for AI? Vishwas Patkar: Yeah. So, what we're seeing in the sub-investment grade space, especially in high yield, is very different. There, the growth in data center financing has happened around project finance deals for data center construction. In many cases, these have come from crypto miner companies that effectively provide what we call speed to power solutions. We've also had some unsecured issuance from neo clouds, although that's relatively small. But this sector has expanded from effectively zero billion around the fall of last year to about [$]40 billion this year. We expect to see another [$]20 billion of issuance by the end of 2026. And the way they fit into this whole ecosystem is – these project finance deals we think are interesting diversifiers for regular credit investors. They do come with construction risks, especially initially for the first two to three years till the data center is up and running. But on the flip side, you do get a lot of structural enhancements and creditor protections, which is something you don't see in the vast majority of the high yield market. So, I think a key shift in the framework that investors have to do for these deals is focus on asset-level risk, which is again, I think a big divergence from how the vast majority of the credit market trades, which is largely unsecured corporate-level risk that investors have been used to. Carolyn Campbell: All right. You just brought up construction risks. Do you think that's the biggest risk facing the high-yield investors today? Vishwas Patkar: Yes. I think for the high-yield deals in particular, construction risk is the dominant vector that investors are focused on. Because it's important to remember a lot of the debt issuers are first-time borrowers. And they have a limited track record of construction in the past. So, you could see potential delays and things like cost overruns that can affect sentiment on the sector. Or at least on specific bond deals. And this will be especially important to monitor going into the second half of the year, as we have some of the first delivery dates coming up for the deals in the sector that were announced last year. That being said, you know, even though some of the tenants have termination rights, if delays go beyond 180 days, our view is that given the structural power constraints, these termination rights are unlikely to be exercised. So, while construction milestones can affect sentiment and short-term valuations, we would look at any blips as buying opportunities in the space. Alright. So Carolyn, let me throw this back to you. So, construction risk clearly very important for the corporate credit market, especially for high yield investors. Is that something ABS investors or commercial mortgage-backed investors care about? And in what other ways are these asset classes different from corporate credit? Carolyn Campbell: Okay. So first and foremost, the biggest difference is that in securitized products, the assets are stabilized, they're cash flowing, they're online. We don't have that first vector of construction risk in our space. The second biggest difference is while in high yield and IG we've mostly seen – or we've entirely seen single campus, single tenant data centers; in securitization issuance, it's mostly multi-tenant, multi-asset, multi-regional, deals that have come to market. And so, it's a very different risk profile. And as a consequence, investors are focused not just on who is behind this one single lease and what are the termination rates, but what does the landscape look like in general for compute? How does that affect vacancy and churn rates? And then lastly, the issuers themselves are different. You talked about the crypto companies. You get a little bit more of the data center, data center construction. Whereas in securitized products, these are companies that have been around for 5, 10, 20 years. They're accustomed to managing a fleet of assets, dozens if not hundreds of tenants. They've got a little bit more of a track record for the most part, than the types of issuers we're seeing in the credit market. Vishwas Patkar: Your market post-construction, more leverage to the thematic of demand for compute – and how the AI investment cycle is playing out. Versus the corporate credit market, which is largely exposed to construction risks as the data centers get built out. So that's a very important difference. That being said, one theme that ties both our markets are just healthy fundamentals, but at the same time heavy supply. So, I talked about how we see that affecting our view on investment grade. How is that same tension showing up in securitized products? Carolyn Campbell: So exactly as you said, the fundamental story is very strong. We don't see deterioration in performance of the assets either that has happened yet or that we expect to come in the near term. So, it really is a technically driven story. Supply in this space, we're forecasting at around [$]30 billion for year, so

18 Jun

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11 min
23 Jun

The Obstacles to Buying a First Home

First-time homebuyers may get short windows of relief, but our co-head of Securitized Products Research James Egan and Senior Economist and Strategist in Morgan Stanley's Private Wealth Management Sarah Wolfe say the bigger story is a housing market resetting around a higher bar to entry. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- James Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Housing Strategist and Co-Head of Securitized Products Strategy. Sarah Wolfe: And I'm Sarah Wolfe, Senior Economist and Strategist within Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. James Egan: And today, why first-time homebuyers are facing a tougher path to ownership. It's Tuesday, June 23rd at 10am in New York. Buying a first-time home has always been a big step, but for a growing number of first-time buyers today, the goal can really seem insurmountable. Mortgage rates might be down from where they were in the second half of 2023, but they're significantly higher than they were for the several years before that. Monthly payments have roughly doubled for a median-priced home. And my colleague Jay Bacow and I have talked several times on this podcast about how many homeowners feel like they're locked into those lower rates. And they're staying put because they just don't want to give up a two or three-handle mortgage rate for something that has a six in front of it. But Sarah, as we know, this is bigger than just first-time buyers. Now, they often start the housing transaction chain, and when they can't buy, current owners may not be able to sell and trade up. That slows turnover across the market, and it also reduces activity tied to housing – from mortgages and renovations to moving and furniture. And it can keep would-be buyers renting for longer, which adds pressure to rental demand. So, how do you see this situation? Is this just another affordability squeeze, or has the housing market reset to a higher barrier to entry? Sarah Wolfe: I do think that we're on the upper bound of affordability pressures. This is about as bad as it's going to get. But as we discussed in our recent publication of The Economy Explained, unfortunately, we do think that the housing market is resetting at a structurally higher barrier to entry. There's a lot of reasons for that. The first is higher interest rates. Yes, mortgage rates are sitting around 6.5 percent, and they should come down from here, but maybe not better than 5.5 percent, right, in an optimistic scenario. The second is demographic pressures. Remember, we have this tremendous aging population of baby boomers. All of their children are now entering their prime home-buying years, so there's a lot of demand for ownership. The third and fourth ones are land regulation and permitting, which is at the state and local level, really hard to change. And the last one is climate risk. It's just raising insurance pricing and making it much more difficult to buy a home. So overall, we see a world where, yes, mortgage rates come down a bit, improve affordability marginally, but we think neutral and other interest rates at the longer end of the curve are going to be higher than the post-financial crisis period. And what we're going to see is that those forces are going to widen the divide between who can own a home and who cannot. And who gains from that wealth accumulation and who does not. James Egan: Right. So now, you mentioned where mortgage rates are today, above that 6 percent rate. Rates did briefly – in February, we got below 6 percent before they bounced back up here. Why did that short-lived relief matter so much? Sarah Wolfe: I think that short-lived relief showed us that moves in the mortgage rate make a difference, but things are so unaffordable that it didn't make that much of a difference. So, the dip below 6 percent was very exciting. It happened this past February. It was the first time that mortgage rates fell below 6 percent since 2022, and we saw a few things happen. First, it lowered the monthly payment for first-time homebuyers from about two point two thousand dollars a month to one point nine thousand. So makes a bit of a difference. And it lowered the share of income that goes towards monthly mortgage payments from about 26 percent of income to 22 percent, from peak to trough. So, that is a notable improvement. But what we saw in the new home sales data and the existing home sales data, that it did not drive people back into the housing market. I want to turn it back to you though, Jim, because you've actually done a lot of interesting work on this. And how this change in mortgage rates has changed the monthly cost that people have to pay for a median-priced home. Can you tell us a little bit more? James Egan: Sure. So, we talk about the lock-in effect a lot, and it's kind of easy to point to: Well, there are a lot of people with mortgage rates that are around 3 percent or 3.5 percent, and the prevailing rate's at 6 percent, and that's a lot higher, so they're locked in. But when we look at the actual numbers in terms of what we're asking a homeowner to do – to list their home for sale and move to another home today, pay off that existing mortgage, take out a new one. When you take into account how much higher home prices are today… You bought a home in 2016, for instance, right? Let's assume you refinanced in 2020 or 2021 if you still live there, right? Most homeowners did. So, you've actually taken your monthly payment, and it is lower today than it was when you bought your home in 2016. If we assume that your income has risen alongside just median household income over that time period, your monthly payment as a share of your income today is probably sub 8 percent. If you bought over the past three years, your monthly payment is a share of your income. You mentioned some numbers earlier. It's low to mid 20 percent. From a dollar amount perspective, if you were to pay off that 2016 mortgage, as an example, and take out one today, your payment is probably [$]13[00] or $1400 higher. It's like a 200 percent increase. That's very difficult economically for a lot of households, and that's the kind of physical manifestation of that lock-in effect. Now, Sarah, given this significant change in housing math, what does that mean for who is actually able to buy in this market? Sarah Wolfe: It's making who's able to buy into the market a lot more selective. So, what we're seeing is that first-time home buyers today are actually not meaningfully older. They're still about 36 years old, but they are a much more selective group financially. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York put out a great analysis on this recently, and they basically found that the first-time home buyer profile today is taking out a mortgage that's nearly $350,000, compared to $240,000 in 2019 and $200,000, a decade ago. So, significant increase in mortgage balances. At the same time, credit standards have tightened significantly, so that average credit score to get a mortgage has risen quite a bit over the last 5 to 10 years. And what this is doing is it's shifting who can buy and also where they can buy. So, we're seeing higher-quality home buyers moving to lower-income zip codes. So, buying cheaper homes in lower-income metro areas, and so it's wealthier buyers in lower-income areas. And that's the really big shift that we're seeing. It's a demand resorting story. And what we're also seeing, and we hear this a lot when we talk to our financial advisors and their clients, is that family is increasingly helping their other family members put that down payment down; in particular, parents helping their children buy that first home. So, we're seeing that first-time buyers may be feeling this pressure, right, when it comes to rates. How much of this affordability issue, though, is being driven by the locked-in effect specifically? James Egan: So, look, it's clearly playing a role. We just talked about some of the math behind that. But then when you look at what that means on a nationwide basis when it comes to inventory, when it comes to so many other aspects of this, that homeowner who's unwilling to give up that lower mortgage rate, that lower payment, right, their homes are off the market. Existing inventories for sale, they've picked up from historic lows in 2023, but they're still very, very low on a long-run basis. The fewer homes there are for sale, the more upward pressure or the absence of downward pressure that's going to put on home prices, right? We saw affordability plummet in 2022 and 2023 when rates backed up. We saw existing home sales really, really come down as a result. But home prices remained at record highs. They continued to set new record highs. For home prices to actually come down, right, you need people who are willing to sell at lower home prices. Sarah, you just mentioned that lending standards themselves remain tight. Sarah Wolfe: Mm-hmm. James Egan: Those forced sales, those tend to be distressed transactions. We don't see that distress in the market providing the inventory and the motivated inventory to lead to softer home prices. So, it's really that lack of inventory which we think is in large part driven by the lock-in effect that's kept home prices. And as a result, that piece of the affordability equation kind of stuck at these higher levels. Sarah Wolfe: I mean, it's really this vicious cycle, the locked-in effect making it difficult for entry-level buyers to get into the market – and then fewer existing homeowners sell or trade up or relocate. So, on and on it goes. Are there broader implications of this freeze? James Egan: Right. So, we just talked about what that means from an inventory perspective. And then if you think about affordability remaining challenged, lending standards themselves remaining tight, inventory remaining as low as it is, you could argue that we're at one of the more difficult times that we've seen f

23 Jun

•

13 min
27 Feb

Stan Druckenmiller: Invest, Then Investigate

Legendary macro investor Stan Druckenmiller sits down with Iliana Bouzali, Global Head of Derivatives Distribution and Structuring at Morgan Stanley, to reflect on his early career and how he learned to act decisively and change course quickly when the facts on the ground shift. Druckenmiller, who currently manages his own capital at Duquesne Family Office, shares how he would construct a portfolio if he had to start over today, why contrarianism is overrated, and which stock he regrets selling too early. The preceding content was informational only, based on information available when created, and is not intended to serve as individualized investment or financial advice. No portion should be construed as a recommendation or guidance. The appropriateness of a particular investment or strategy will depend on an investor’s individual circumstances and objectives. Opinions expressed by the guest speaker are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Morgan Stanley. All opinions are subject to change without notice. Neither the information provided nor any opinion expressed constitutes an offer or a solicitation nor is it tax or legal advice. © 2026 Morgan Stanley CRC 5236998 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

27 Feb

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36 min
12 Jun

India’s Next Market Phase

Chief Asia Economist Chetan Ahya joins Head of India Research and Chief India Equity Strategist Ridham Desai to break down India’s macro outlook, capital flows and sector opportunities. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Chetan Ahya: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Asia Economist. Ridham Desai: And I'm Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley's Head of India Research and Chief India Equity Strategist. Chetan Ahya: Today, the biggest takeaways from our India Investment Forum in Mumbai. From the shifting outlook for India's markets and flows to the sectors driving the next phase of corporate earnings and CapEx. It's Friday, June 12th at 7PM in Hong Kong. Ridham Desai: And 4:30PM in Mumbai. Chetan Ahya: Ridham, the Morgan Stanley's India Investment Forum took place in Mumbai last week, and I was there with you. These events are a great opportunity to speak with investors who come across from the globe to attend. Now that we have had a few days to process the conversations, what stood out to you? What was the biggest shift in investor sentiment that you picked on? Ridham Desai: So, Chetan, I think it's been the case of a continuing story about India. Domestic investors look that they are bullish, and foreign investors continue to stay rather cautious on the Indian markets. We could see that in the overall attendance. In contrast, I think domestic investors were looking for the next stock that they wanted to buy. They were seeking opportunities, and there was a lot of interest in meeting companies. Before we get into markets, let me turn back to you from a macro side. India's growth story remains strong, but relative growth appears to be cooling. This is in contrast to markets like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and the US. How should investors think about India's macro positioning in that context? Chetan Ahya: So, Ridham, when I look at the macro data in India, they're all indicating a meaningful upside in the growth trend. So I'll just cite two key cyclically sensitive macro data points. One is the banking system credit growth, and number two is the auto sales, particularly the passenger vehicle. So bank credit growth is growing as of the last biweekly data point that we got. It's growing at seventeen point seven percent year-on-year, and car sales are growing at twenty-seven percent in the month of May. But as you were mentioning earlier, the relative growth opportunity is a challenge for India and to just share the numbers on the earnings growth for the first quarter that we saw across the region. So we saw Korea's earnings growth at one hundred and seventy percent. We saw Taiwan's earnings growth at forty-eight percent year on year. Japan at thirty-three percent. The US has seen a growth of about twenty-seven percent year on year. So in that context, when India is reporting thirteen percent growth, it's becoming a challenge for investors to look for opportunities in India relative to other markets. Either they are more focused on the other markets than India. So let me come back to you, Ridham. Staying with the investment implications, India projects stable valuations and strong corporate earnings, but its relative growth advantage has narrowed. How should investors reconcile this contradiction? Ridham Desai: If I go back thirty-five years, as long as we have the MSCI index series, and as far as I have been in this industry, this is the lowest relative multiple that India has traded at. And indeed, growth last year was weak. But if you see QOQ, we have started to accelerate. The broad market earnings growth trajectory has shown a doubling in the quarter that ended March over the quarter that ended December. But it underscores the point you made about the relative growth complex. It's clearly not in India's favor. And a lot of the capital in the world is short-term oriented, and it cares for what growth is gonna come in the next quarter or two. And that's the state of the market right now. However, what I would say is that equities is a quintessential long-duration asset class. In the long run, what matters is terminal growth. I don't really think India's terminal growth has moved much. It remains far superior to a lot of other countries around the world. And therefore, I think this does present itself as a great opportunity for a long-term investor while the markets are digesting this relative growth disadvantage that India seems to have over the next, say, three or four quarters. Chetan Ahya: And Ridham, another theme from the forum was policy action to attract capital. Policymakers announced a number of measures right as our conference ended and they aimed to withdraw withholding tax on debt investors, also providing banks with an incentive to take up more dollar borrowing. How central are these measures to sustaining foreign inflows into Indian markets? Ridham Desai: I think the measures taken by policymakers are very important, probably amongst the most important policy actions this year. The removal of taxation on debt investors will make a difference. The provision for hedging to external commercial borrowings as well as to foreign currency deposits will make a difference. It should boost flows into India over the next twelve months. That said, these measures may not help the equity flows because the equity flows, I think, are going to depend on the relative growth situation. Now, there's only that much India can do to lift its growth. It may accelerate to the high teens. So growth elsewhere needs to decelerate for equity investors to return. Or India needs to see the start of a major IPO cycle because in primary issuances, foreigners do come to buy, and that may change the net picture on FBI flows in the equity markets. But as far as the debt markets are concerned, I think the measures taken last week are going to prove to be quite potent, and India should see the benefits accruing over the next few weeks and months. Chetan, from your perspective, how important is the policy backdrop right now in determining whether India can keep attracting long-term global capital despite more competitive returns elsewhere in the short run? Chetan Ahya: So Ridham, I think the key focus for the policymakers had been with these measures to boost short-term capital inflows to stabilize the currency. There has been a balance of payment deficit. So from that perspective, the short-term capital inflow augmentation effort as you mentioned, has been the correct move. But from the long-term perspective, we think that the government needs to boost competitiveness of the Indian manufacturing. Because in the context in which AI could affect India's services exports, there is a need to augment more export receipts from the manufacturing sector. At the same time, if they improve the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, it will help India to attract more capital inflows from long-term investors for the purpose of FDI. And the good news is that the government is on it. They are taking a number of measures to boost that competitiveness in the manufacturing. But we think that there is more action needed and hopefully in the intention to improve the balance of payment dynamics and exports from manufacturing sector, we will see more actions from the government in the coming months. Ridham Desai: Chetan, you've also written extensively about the structural capital spending cycle in Asia and India. Can you walk us through the key details here, especially in the Indian context? Chetan Ahya: I think the key story that we are observing, it's sort of more or less global, but definitely very clearly seen in Asia, that there seems to be a super cycle for CapEx as well as industrial activity. This CapEx cycle is effectively driven by spending in four key sectors, and that is AI and AI-related digital infrastructure, energy, defense, and industrial onshoring-related CapEx. Now, as far as India is concerned, we are seeing investments in all the four segments that I just mentioned. In fact, it's seeing a significant amount of activity in the space of energy. And, similarly, we are seeing a lot of policy measures, I mentioned earlier, in terms of boosting manufacturing competitiveness. But at the heart of it is government's effort to onshore industrial supply chain. So India's CapEx has also inflected higher. Having said that, the difference between India and, let's say, North Asia, which is Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China, is that they are also a big player in the export market for capital goods when there is global CapEx cycle upswing happening. Nevertheless, India will see the benefit of this CapEx cycle in terms of its own growth push, as well as improvement in productivity. So Ridham, how would you think about the sectoral opportunity within the Indian markets? Ridham Desai: We see a lot of interest in some of these sectors which you mentioned. But actually, I would like to start off with financials. I see the banks in a very sweet spot. Balance sheets are in pristine condition. The interest rate cycle has troughed, which means margins for the banks have also bottomed and credit growth is finally accelerating. If this CapEx cycle unfolds like the way you are describing it, I think financials will stand to gain the most. And interestingly, the valuations are quite good, both on an absolute as well as on a relative basis. Also, of course, investors can go directly into those sectors which are doing this capital spend. Energy to start with, semiconductors, fertilizers, data centers and aerospace. The only thing to note here is that not everywhere are the valuations attractive enough because in some cases the market has recognized the coming growth cycle and has started to price that in. So we have to be careful about the valuations. But I think financials and industrials are clearly great opportunities in the context of this CapEx recovery that India is likely to see in the coming f

12 Jun

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13 min
22 Jun

Why Warsh May Let Markets Tough It Out

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson reacts to Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting, explaining why the new chair’s credibility may require letting markets experience some short-term pain. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing my views on the New Fed Chair and how to interpret his FOMC meeting last week. It's Monday, June 22nd at 11:30 am in New York. So, let’s get after it. I want to spend today on what I think was one of the more important market events of the year so far. Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting as the Chair. Specifically, he is trying to fortify credibility at a very delicate moment. The economy is stronger than many expected. Inflation is still running above target. And markets have become accustomed to central banks telling them exactly what to think. Back in February, when Warsh was nominated, I argued that this was the right choice if the goal was to lift market credibility. At that time, precious metals were rising parabolically. To me that was a bad signal that markets were questioning whether policy makers could really run the economy hot without creating a disorderly move in the dollar or a broader inflation problem. Since Warsh’s nomination, the S&P 500-to-gold ratio is up close to 40 percent, and I view that as a powerful vote of confidence from the markets. It suggests investors are giving Warsh the benefit of the doubt – that he can shake up the Fed, reduce reliance on the balance sheet as a policy tool, and solidify discipline that gives the administration some breathing room. But here’s the catch. Enhancing credibility is not always painless. In fact, credibility must be earned by doing something markets don’t immediately like. And last week had some of that flavor. Stocks weakened, the yield curve bear-flattened, the dollar strengthened, and precious metals sold off. From my perspective, that is not a failed first meeting. That is a good and necessary first step. What stood out to me most was Warsh’s emphasis on the inflation mandate. He made it very clear that the Fed’s primary responsibility is price stability – not managing every wiggle in the labor market, not smoothing every risk asset drawdown, and not hand-holding investors through every data point. And frankly, after five years of missing the inflation target, that message was overdue. The stronger economy and improving private payroll data give the Fed room to lean into that message. I don’t think this means the Fed is about to hike rates immediately, or even necessarily this year. But it does mean the reaction function has changed, and markets do not like uncertainty around the Fed path. The other major shift was communication. Warsh appears to be moving away from excessive forward guidance, and I think that’s a very healthy development. For years, I’ve argued that the Fed became too influential in shaping not only market behavior, but also how investors interpreted the data. When markets are only trying to guess what the Fed will say next, the Fed loses the value of market prices as an independent signal. That’s backwards. Markets should be reacting to incoming information, and the Fed should be learning from those reactions – not vice versa. A little less Fed hand-holding may be uncomfortable, but ironically it is necessary to get to a more stable place. Investors may not like it in the short term, but the system works better when market prices are less impeded by policy manipulation. The wisdom of crowds is often better than the wisdom of committees. The near-term risk for equities is not rate hikes or even uncertainty. It’s liquidity. Balance sheet support has already started to fade. The Reserve Management Program is down roughly 75 percent from its peak, Treasury buybacks have been reduced by 50 percent. And at the same time lending growth is accelerating because the real economy is using more capital. That combination means liquidity is tightening, and our work suggests that could remain a headwind for stocks into July. Bottom line, the market may test Warsh’s resolve. That’s what markets do. The key question is whether the Fed tolerates some short-term pain in order to strengthen longer-term credibility. My guess is that it tries to do exactly that, until funding markets, credit markets, or bond volatility forces its hand to add more liquidity and loosen financial conditions again. That argues for choppy and even corrective price action in equity markets in the near term until the earnings led bull market has its next leg higher. Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

22 Jun

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5 min
17 Jun

Can Policy Solve AI’s Chipflation?

AI’s appetite for memory has turned chips into an inflationary factor. Our U.S. Public Policy Strategist Ariana Salvatore looks at what policymakers could do to reduce that pressure. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Public Policy Strategist. Today, I'll be talking about chipflation and what policy tools can or can't be used to address the memory bottleneck. It's Wednesday, June 17th, at 10am in New York. Last week, you heard my colleague Shawn Kim talk about chipflation and the surging cost of memory. Today, I'll get into what policymakers can and can't do about it. As listeners will know, memory chips are becoming an increasingly strategic resource because AI infrastructure depends on them. And when a resource becomes strategic, governments tend to get involved. The challenge is that policy can help at the margin but probably can't solve the problem quickly. There are three reasons for that. First, many U.S. policy tools all take time. Direct subsidies, tax credits, procurement guarantees, and faster permitting are all things that can support new fabrication plants, packaging facilities, and testing capacity. But memory supply is not going to appear overnight. This new capacity has to be built, equipped, qualified, and ramped – and that process can take years. Second, China may be able to add some supply in conventional memory markets, but not enough to close the broader gap created by AI demand. That's especially true for high bandwidth memory, the more strategic type of memory for frontier AI systems. Supply there still remains highly concentrated, technically complex, and difficult to scale. Third, our base case is that U.S. policy remains more restrictive, not less. We don't expect a broad loosening of export controls given the strategic imperative of this technology. Instead, we think policymakers are likely to continue to prioritize supply chain resilience, trusted capacity, and geopolitical de-risking over the near-term price relief. Now, from a policy perspective, we think it's important to split memory into two categories. The first is AI strategic memory, high bandwidth and advanced DRAM. That's the memory that enables the most advanced AI systems. And for that reason, we think policy here is likely to focus on protecting strategic capability, limiting geopolitical vulnerability, and expanding trusted supply across the U.S. and its allied countries. The second category is commodity or legacy memory. That's the memory that you can think of as being used in autos, industrial systems, consumer electronics, and other non-frontier applications. Now here, we think policymakers could consider more flexible options, like differentiated licensing or targeted support for critical sectors. But even then, the limits are practical: permitting, workforce, tools, qualification cycles, and production lead times. China is the other major variable. Chinese producers are expanding in conventional DRAM and NAND. In some consumer-grade applications, that supply could act as a relief valve for buyers that have been crowded out by AI-related demand. But still, there are limits. Chinese producers face yield and technology gaps, even if policy is supportive. And China alone will not solve the high-bandwidth memory bottleneck. The regulatory backdrop reinforces that point. Some Chinese memory producers remain subject to U.S. restrictions or even heightened scrutiny. Access to the most advanced lithography tools also remains a hard ceiling. Without that access, scaling leading-edge memory becomes much more difficult. So, the bottom line is this: policy can mitigate chipflation, but it's unlikely to end it in the near term. For AI strategic memory, policymakers are more likely to defend access, deepen allied coordination, and encourage trusted capacity than to loosen restrictions. For commodity memory, there may be room for some targeted flexibility. But of course, geopolitics and timing still matter. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

17 Jun

•

4 min

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