Andrew Sheets: The Uncertainty of the Fed’s New Certainty

Investors have had a lot to take in over the past few weeks, but corporate credit markets remain calm despite turbulence elsewhere. Vishy Tirupattur explains. ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Global Director of Fixed Income Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the current calm in the corporate credit markets. It's Friday, October 29th at 1:00 p.m. in New York.Over the past few weeks, risk markets have been buffeted by volatility from a wide array of sources. It was around a month ago that the regulatory reset in China and the near-term funding pressures on select property developers roiled global markets, as investors fretted all the systemic implications for global growth.Then, a mixed U.S. jobs report, along with sharply higher commodity prices, intensified the debate around stagflation. And the rhetoric from multiple central banks has been increasingly hawkish. So, a lot for investors to take in.The combination of these concerns has resulted in substantial market gyrations. The S&P 500 index declined by about 4% before recovering to all-time highs. The shape of the Treasury yield curve has twisted and turned. The benchmark 10-year Treasury interest rate went from around 1.3% to around 1.7% and back down to 1.56%. The market pricing of the timing of a Fed rate hike has come in sharply.But amidst all these substantial moves, corporate credit markets on both sides of the Atlantic have largely stayed calm. Credit spreads, which are the risk premium investors demand to hold corporate debt or U.S. treasuries, have hovered near 52-week tights in investment grade, high yield and leveraged loans across the U.S. and Europe. And with surprisingly limited volatility.Credit market volatility relative to equity markets remains very low. Market access for companies across the credit spectrum has remained robust, as indicated by strong issuance trends, running at or ahead of the pace of a year ago. So, what explains this stark difference between credit and other markets? The answer boils down to meaningfully improved credit fundamentals and elevated company balance sheet liquidity, leading to a decidedly benign outlook for defaults over the next 12 months, if not longer.Morgan Stanley's credit strategists Srikanth Sankaran and Vishwas Patkar have highlighted that the balance sheet damage from COVID has been reversed. At the end of the second quarter this year, gross leverage in U.S. investment grade credit has declined sharply back to pre-COVID levels. Net leverage is now below pre-COVID levels, while interest coverage has risen sharply to a seven-year high. The trends in the high yield sector are even more impressive, driven not just by the rebound in earnings but also negative debt growth. After four consecutive quarters of declines from the second quarter 2020 peak, median leverage now sits below the pre-COVID trough. That 71% of the issuers are now reporting lower growth levels quarter over quarter, reflects the broad-based improvement we are seeing in the market.Even in the leveraged buyout world, while 2021 has been a bumper year for acquisition activity, unprecedented equity cushions have resulted in a much better alignment of sponsor and lender interests, helping to alleviate concerns.So, what are the implications for investors? A lot, of course, is already in the price. With credit spreads near the tight end of the spectrum, we are more likely to see them widen than tighten. Indeed, the base case expectation of our credit strategists is more modestly wider splits. However, the strength in credit fundamentals suggests that the outlook for defaults is benign, and likely below long term average default levels. Thus, we prefer taking default risk to spread risk here, leading us to favor high yield credit or investment grade credit and, within high yield, loans over bonds.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts on share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

29 Loka 20214min

One of the great conundrums of finance is predicting what markets will return over the long run. But with some historical research and the power of math, the future can become a bit clearer.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, chief cross strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Thursday, October 28th at 2 p.m. in London.The question of what markets will return over the next decade is a conundrum. It's complicated because of just how much can change in a given year, let alone a decade, but also simple because over longer horizons, valuation measures such as bond yields or stock price-to-earnings ratios tend to matter a lot more for how well a market does. A 10-year horizon really matters to investors saving for the future. But most investors, and also this podcast tend to focus on events happening in the much more immediate future.So what do we think this return picture holds?When estimating what a market will return over the long run, there are really two basic approaches. The first, sometimes called the demand approach, assumes that markets are efficient, and that investors will always demand that the market is priced to deliver an average historical return. In this approach, future returns for the market are simply assumed to be the long run average. We don't use this approach, but others do, and it is appealing for being relatively straightforward.An alternative, which we favor, could be called the supply approach. This attempts to quantify just how much return a given asset can supply. So, for bonds with a fixed yield, this approach is attractively simple. On a 10-year horizon, the return for a broad bond index should be pretty similar to its yield today, regardless of the path that interest rates take between now and then. That might sound somewhat counterintuitive, but there's some pretty good math, we think, to back it up. After making a few minor adjustments, we think the U.S. Aggregate Bond Index may be able to supply a return of about 2% per year, over the next decade.For stocks... now there are more moving parts and more assumptions that can ultimately be proven right or wrong. The long run return of a stock market can be broken down into three parts: the dividends of the stock market pace, the growth in the market's earnings, and the change in the valuation that's applied to those earnings. The dividend yield is relatively easy to estimate, but earnings and valuations create a lot more debate.For earnings, our starting point is to assume that they grow, at least with the rate of inflation. We see a good argument for this, if prices everywhere are rising, companies should book higher sales and profits. This is one reason why equities tend to be a better asset class in higher inflation because they can grow their cash flows much more easily than, say, a bond can.So how much do earnings grow over and above the rate of inflation? We average two trend lines: a very long run trend of historical earnings growth and one that only focuses on more recent history. There are pros and cons of each. For example, only using the recent historical trend may better reflect current conditions in the market, but it also might overstate what's been an unusually favorable environment for companies. By taking the average, we split the difference. Now, with stock market earnings are above trend. We assume that there is some convergence down. And if earnings are depressed, we assume some normalization up. We think there's some good historical arguments for this, as earnings do tend to oscillate around these trend lines over time.Finally, what about those valuations? Well, we assume that valuations move back to long run averages, but do so only gradually, as we believe history says this gravitational pull takes time.Putting all of this together, we think the U.S. stock market could return about 5.2% per year over the next decade. The bad news is that's roughly half the long run average. The good news? It's still two and a half times higher than the return from that broad bond index.So where can investors find higher returns, especially relative to inflation? For equities, our framework suggests the highest so-called real returns are in Europe, where we think stocks could beat inflation by about six percent per year. In fixed income markets, we see the highest inflation adjusted returns in emerging market bonds.Finally, where could our assumptions be wrong? The return for bonds should be pretty well anchored by their yields, but for stock markets, there are several swing factors. Higher corporate taxes, for example, or higher interest rates could mean we're too optimistic about our assumptions for earnings growth and valuations. On the other hand, a stronger economy and importantly, a more permanent shift higher in market profitability could mean that our assumptions for mean reversion back to historical averages are simply too pessimistic. Either way, time will tell.Thanks for listening. Subscribe to Thoughts on the Market on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you.

28 Loka 20214min

Autonomous trucking may sound like science fiction, but its impacts on transportation costs, the labor market and a breadth of industries may be closer than we think.----- Transcript -----Adam Jonas Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Adam Jonas, head of Morgan Stanley's Global Auto and shared mobility research team. Ravi Shanker And I'm Ravi Shankar, equity analyst covering the North American freight transportation industry. Adam Jonas And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be talking autonomous. Specifically, the road ahead for autonomous trucking. It's Wednesday, October 27th at 10 a.m. in New York. Adam Jonas Ravi, before we get into the autonomy topic, specifically, your sector really sits at the epicenter of labor inflation and driver shortage. So, just help set the scene for us. How big of a problem is this? Ravi Shanker It's pretty difficult right now. It has been the case for a while. We've had a demographic problem in trucking for pretty much the last two decades and counting. In fact, you can find news stories going back to 1910 talking about a driver shortage in the industry. But it's particularly acute right now. A lot of it is structural, not cyclical. So we think we need to find unconventional solutions to the problem. Adam Jonas So remind us why autonomy progresses faster in trucking than in cars. You and I have had this debate over many years but tell us why it's faster in trucking. Ravi Shanker It's a slightly different problem to solve with trucking. I mean, it's still a very difficult problem to solve. But the fact that 93% of miles driven of a truck are on the highway and autonomous driving is slightly easier to solve on the highway than it is in the middle of Manhattan for instance. That really helps. The fact that this is an industry that's really driven by unit economics and labor accounts for 35-40% of the cost of trucking, and if you can substitute a driver at least partially or maybe completely even, that will significantly reduce the cost of trucking. And obviously, there's a safety aspect; the fact that a truck accident can cause significant damage. And if you can have technology solve that problem and step in, that can save countless lives over time. So we think it's a slightly easier problem to solve. The economic savings may be better or easier to quantify with trucking than with passenger cars. Adam Jonas And that's a really good point, because I find in my conversations with investors that people tend to think of autonomy as this blanket homogeneous technology. But I want to understand a bit more about the economics of autonomy, payback periods, cost benefit. What are some of the highlights from the numbers that you've been running? Ravi Shanker So we think that autonomy can reduce the cost of trucking by 60%, six zero. If you can electrify the truck, that's probably another 10% on top of that. Obviously, if you take a truck company today and reduce their cost of operations by 60%, that's significant savings. On top of that, because you don't have to deal with hours of service regulations for a driver, you can significantly improve your productivity of the truck and hopefully you can gain some market share as well. So, we think that these new technology trucks cost roughly 50 to 70 thousand dollars more than a regular truck today, but the payback period can be measured in weeks and not years. Ravi Shanker So Adam, again, to me, it's relatively clear what the use case is for autonomy in trucking. Where are we with pass cars, where are those passenger robotaxis that we were promised a few years ago? Adam Jonas Well, I actually had the opportunity to ask the chair and CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, on a Morgan Stanley video series that we published that exact question. And her response, pretty confidently was we're going to see major development in quarters, not years. Now that mission is focused on robotaxi in dense urban cities like San Francisco and other cities. Ravi, I think the definition of success there isn't that they've solved autonomy in two years because that's not something we're going to solve. We think that the definition of success there will be; are they able to fleet many tens or maybe even a couple of hundred robotaxis in a major city or a collection of major U.S. cities with driver out? Even if it's a simple mission doing a giant rectangle on a geofence or, you know, something that can resemble a streetcar without cables or a streetcar without wires. Just that proof point, even if it doesn't completely remove your driving license and substitute your commute entirely, will go a long way to convincing policymakers, investors and the general public that this is not science fiction, we're going to get there, right? Just like the barnstorming age of early aviation, these bigger and bigger feats every week, every month, we think we'll see something similar in autonomy. Ravi Shanker And maybe some of the key benefits of autonomy can be realized even with these kind of small early use cases. But I was thinking like maybe a pretty nice commonality in both our worlds, maybe the center sliver of the Venn diagram, if you will, between autonomous trucking, autonomous pass cars, is autonomous delivery vans. We've done a lot of work on what this means the last mile. Obviously, GM, Ford other OEMs have been talking about this. Where do you think we stand there in terms of these OEMs entering that market again? Adam Jonas Yeah, especially post-COVID. I mean, the growth of e-commerce and our obvious dependency, increasing dependency on final mile. That use case is perfect for electrification and autonomy. And I would just make the point that advancing the state of the art of connected car and connected car ecosystems and electric ecosystems accelerates the development of the autonomous economy too because electric cars make better AVs. And then autonomous cars make better electric cars because you can optimize the utilization and the use case and the inter workings with the infrastructure. So, I think that is a very hot area and I would agree with you there is middle ground that we're going to see in your neighborhood, perhaps sooner than people think, even if it's still at a slow speed or not all the time in all neighborhoods, in all weather conditions. Adam Jonas Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you a question that's always on people's minds and that's the impact on the workforce and jobs. How are your companies talking to current drivers about this autonomy subject? Ravi Shanker This is a really good question and obviously somewhat of a sensitive topic. I think the truck fleet operators want to be very careful and very clear that trucking is not going to displace every truck driver or like hundreds of thousands of truck jobs any time soon. In fact, we had a report that was commissioned and published by the Department of Transportation a few months ago, it was earlier this year that basically said that even with a bullish base of adoption of autonomous trucking, they did not see risk to significant job losses in the trucking space just given the extreme truck driver shortage that we already have and the limited new labor supply that's going into this industry. So, it's something to be very cognizant of, something to be very sensitive about, but at the same time, we think the technology can actually help the industry and not be a hindrance. Ravi Shanker So Adam, taking everything we've discussed today into account, what are the investment implications of this? Adam Jonas There's really lots of different ways you could express an investment opinion. I think Apple CEO Tim Cook once described autonomy as the mother of all AI. In the auto industry, many of our clients see it, as you know, the ultimate internet of things, internet of cars. And so, there are a variety of adjacent industries, both within auto and transportation, but also technology enablers, sensor companies, semiconductors, processors, A.I. companies, network operators, data. There's all sorts of ways to express it across industries. And interestingly, according to your work, the beneficiaries of autonomy ultimately extend across multiple industries, right? Fleet operators and frankly, ultimately, the consumer, too. So, the question might be what sector isn't exposed to this technological revolution? Adam Jonas All right, Ravi, thanks for taking the time to chat. Ravi Shanker Absolutely, Adam. Great speaking with you. Adam Jonas And 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.

28 Loka 20218min

Debates in D.C. continue to make headlines, but even with lowered expectations for the Biden agenda, we find a robust set of climate-focused provisions likely to survive the process and benefit the clean tech sector. ----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, head of U.S. public policy research and municipal strategy for Morgan Stanley.Stephen Byrd And I'm Stephen Byrd, head of Morgan Stanley's North American Research for the Power and Utilities and Clean Energy Industries.Michael Zezas And on this edition of the podcast, we'll be talking about clean energy and the latest developments for the bipartisan infrastructure deal and President Biden's build back better agenda. It's Tuesday, October 26th at 10 a.m. in New York.Michael Zezas So Steven, with the negotiations winding down on the legislation Congress is considering around the president's economic agenda, I wanted to speak with you because you cover a sector, clean tech, that's really at the nexus of many things Congress and the White House are trying to achieve. In particular, even as the size of the economic and climate package has been cut from $6 trillion dollars to $3.5 trillion dollars now, perhaps as low as $1.5 trillion dollars, one constant has been a potentially large amount earmarked for clean energy infrastructure. By our estimate, there could be roughly $500 billion of new money allocated towards this goal. So, last month on the podcast, you outlined eight headline proposals, maybe we could start by updating everyone on those proposals as they stand now in the scaled back version of the bill.Stephen Byrd Yeah, thanks, Mike. There is still a lot of support for clean energy in the draft legislation. Let me walk through the eight elements that investors have been most focused on to give you a sense for just how broad that support is.Stephen Byrd Number one, and the boldest of these proposals is a clean electricity performance program or CEPP. This would essentially push all utilities and load serving entities to adopt clean energy and phase out fossil fuels. Number two is a new tax credit for energy storage and biofuels. Number three is a major extension of tax credits for wind, solar, fuel cells and carbon capture, and the payment for many of these technologies is higher than they've been in the past. Number four is significant incentives for domestic manufacturing of clean energy equipment. Number five is what's often referred to as direct pay for tax credits. This essentially provides owners with the immediate cash benefit of tax losses; that avoids these companies needing to go monetize those tax losses via the tax equity market to the same extent that they do now. Number six is support for nuclear power. There's a production tax credit for nuclear power output. Number seven is a major clean hydrogen tax credit. And number eight is significant capital to reduce the risk of wildfires. So it is very broad, very far reaching. It has impacts across the board.Michael Zezas So, which kinds of companies do you think stand to benefit the most from this funding?Stephen Byrd It's really interesting, quite a few subsectors that I cover would receive significant benefit here, I'll highlight the biggest beneficiary. So first, any company involved in green hydrogen, I see quite a bit of benefit here. The tax credit for green hydrogen is $3 a kilogram. That is a very large amount. And we think will incent customers to adopt green hydrogen more quickly. It will incent developers to build out the infrastructure needed to both produce and distribute green hydrogen. So, a number of companies from fuel cell companies to those involved in the industrial gas business to clean energy developers, I think will see a significant benefit there. Another category would be renewable development companies. So, the tax credit for wind and solar and storage is increased. In the case of storage, this is the first time energy storage would get a tax credit, and this further lowers the cost of clean energy. Another category that could be quite significant is carbon capture and sequestration. This technology would receive a significant benefit in terms of the payment per ton of hydrogen. And we believe in many cases, this is going to be really the amount needed to get essentially over the finish line. That is, to provide enough support for those big carbon capture projects to actually get built, which is really quite exciting. Biofuels gets a big benefit. Anyone who wants nuclear power would receive a significant benefit. And also, companies that are working to reduce the risk of wildfires would receive significant government support. So, you can tell it's just very broad and touches on really every subsector that we cover.Michael Zezas Now, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, or CEPP, will likely end up on the cutting room floor. Why is this program's exclusion not a bigger problem in your mind?Stephen Byrd The CEPP, it's really interesting. It certainly is a very bold effort to reduce fossil fuel usage. What we find here, though, is that all of the other provisions are so significant that we believe the adoption of clean energy will continue at a rapid rate. To give you a sense, in 2020 renewable energy in the United States was about 11 percent of power output. By 2030, we project that that can approach around 40 percent. That is a huge increase in just a decade. That is predominantly driven by economics. The cost of wind, solar and energy storage is dropping so quickly that many customers are adopting clean energy based purely on economic grounds, and the elements of support in this draft legislation would further enhance those economics and push customers in that direction anyway. So, we do see a big shift occurring, with or without the CEPP. Fortunately, there are many other elements of support in this draft legislation that we think is going to really provide a boost to many clean tech technologies, many business models, and we're excited about the growth that that would bring.Michael Zezas What about the other types of companies you cover, utilities? This government investment seems like a step toward developing a very different type of business model for them. What do you think the outlook for the sector is?Stephen Byrd I'd say the government support for clean energy that's in this draft legislation does have a number of benefits for utilities. So, we see in parts of the country a virtuous cycle that's been forming. And let me walk through how this is playing out. The coal power plants in many parts of the U.S. are quite expensive compared to renewable energy. So, for example, in the Midwest, the cash cost to run a coal plant could be three times as high as it costs to build a new wind farm. And so what utilities are doing is they are in a very careful, measured way shutting down coal, replacing that coal typically with a combination of wind and solar and energy storage. And typically, customer bills are not going up as a result, because of the benefit from avoiding the cost of running those coal plants. That virtuous cycle is resulting in better earnings per share growth. Now, with the government support that we're seeing in this draft legislation, that shift will accelerate. We will see more transmission spending, for example, more energy storage spending. It will boost the economics of wind and solar, which is fantastic. Also, in terms of risk mitigation, the capital that's in the bill that would help with dealing with the physical damage from climate change, such as wildfires, is another area of benefit. The cost from climate change to our sector is rising. And so government support there will help essentially defray a cost that's becoming quite significant for some of our utilities. So, you know, I think you're right to point this out. The utility sector is quite a big beneficiary here. And, you know, many of our best-in-class utilities can achieve, we think 7%, sometimes 8% EPS growth over a very long time period. By very long, I mean, a multi-decade time period. That to us is quite exciting because risk adjusted, that growth is quite excellent. For many of our utilities, the risk to achieve that is fairly low because the economics of what they're doing is so clear and so compelling. So, we are excited about the impacts to the utility sector.Michael Zezas Steven, thanks for taking the time to talk.Stephen Byrd Great talking with you, Michael.Michael Zezas As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

26 Loka 20218min

The forecast for inflation still appears hot for both consumers and corporates, but when it comes earnings and economic growth, the outlook looks a bit chilly.----- 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, October 25th at 11:30 a.m. in New York. So, let's get after it.Over the past few weeks, we've discussed the increasing probability for a colder winter, but a later start than previously expected. In other words, our "fire and ice" narrative remains very much intact, but timing is a bit more uncertain for the ice portion. Having said that, with inflation running hot in both consumer and corporate channels, the Fed is expected to formally announce its tapering schedule at next week's meeting with perhaps a more hawkish tone to convince markets they are on the job. In other words, the fire portion of our narrative—higher rates driven by a less accommodative fed spurring multiple compression—is very much in gear and a focus for investors.With so much attention on rising inflation now from both investors and the Fed, we shift our attention to the ice portion of our narrative - meaning the ongoing macro growth slowdown and when we can expect it to bottom and reverse course. As regular listeners know, we've been expecting a material slowdown in both economic and earnings growth amid a mid-cycle transition. The good news is, so does the consensus, with third quarter economic growth forecast coming down sharply. While consensus’ fourth quarter GDP forecasts have declined too, it expects growth to reaccelerate from here. This is due to the fact that most have blamed the Delta variant, China's crackdown on real estate or power outages around the world for the economic disappointment in third quarter. The assumption is that all three will get better as we move into year end and 2022.Needless to say, we're not so sure about that assumption, mainly because we think the more important driver of the slowdown has been the mid-cycle transition to slowing growth from post-recession peak growth, an adjustment that's not finished. In our view, would be intellectually inconsistent to think that the mid-cycle transition slowdown won't be worse than normal given the greater than normal amplitude of this entire economic cycle so far. We can't help but recall our position over a year ago when we argued for much faster growth driven by greater operating leverage than normal for earnings. This was directly a result of the record fiscal stimulus that effectively served as government subsidies for corporations. Today, we simply find ourselves in the exact opposite side of the argument relative to consensus, but for the same reasons. Since we believe consensus missed that insight last year, it seems plausible it could be missing it this time on the other side.In short, we think the gross slowdown will be worse and last longer than expected as the payback in demand arrives early next year with a sharp year over year decline in personal disposable income. While many have argued the large increase in personal savings will allow consumption to remain well above trend, it looks to us like personal savings have already been depleted to pre-COVID levels. The run up in stock, real estate and crypto asset prices do provide an additional buffer to savings, however, much of that wealth is concentrated in the upper quartile of the population. At the lower end of the income spectrum, consumer confidence has fallen sharply the past few months, and it's not just due to the Delta variant. Instead, surveys suggest many consumers are worried again about their finances, with inflation increasing at double digit percentages in necessities like food, energy, shelter and health care.Bottom line, the fundamental picture for stocks is deteriorating as the Fed begins to tighten monetary policy and growth slows further into next year. However, asset prices remain elevated as the upper income cohort of retail investors continues to plow money into these same investments. With seasonal trends positive this time of year, institutional investors are forced to chase prices higher. If our analysis is correct, we think this can continue into Thanksgiving, but not much longer. Manage your risk accordingly.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.

25 Loka 20214min

The market’s long term trajectory for oil suggests a decline in prices, but the 'why' matters, and the transition toward more green energy may imply a different outcome.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, chief cross-asset strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, October 22nd at 2:00 p.m. in London. The price of energy has surged this year. While the S&P 500 is up an impressive 21% year to date, that pales in comparison to a broad index of energy commodities - things like oil and natural gas - which are up almost 80%. I wanted to talk today about some of the broader implications of this move and importantly, the somewhat surprising message from future price expectations. Let's actually start with those expectations. While the price for oil is up sharply this year, future prices currently imply a pretty significant decline in the price of oil over the next one, two and three years. Buying a barrel of oil costs about $84 today. But if you want to buy a barrel for delivery in a year's time, the price is $76, a full 10% lower. And for those of you looking ahead to Christmas 2023, that same barrel of oil costs $70, 17% below current levels. Those implied declines in the future price of oil are historically large. If current oil prices simply move sideways over the next year, buying oil 10% below current levels in a year's time will return, well, 10%. That's more than double the return for U.S. high yield bonds, and one reason commodity investors care so much about the shape of these prices over time. Indeed, it's a way for investors to make a pretty healthy return, in this case 10%, in a scenario where the day-to-day price of oil doesn't really move. This dynamic that we see today, where future oil prices are lower than current levels, is called 'backwardation'. And while it matters for commodity investors, it can also have broader implications for how we interpret the economic outlook. When oil prices are rising like they are today, one of the single biggest economic questions is whether this rise is mostly coming from increased demand or more limited oil supply. The price impact may be the same between these two dynamics, but the underlying drivers are very, very different. According to the work by my colleague Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's chief Asia economist, higher demand suggests underlying activity is strengthening and higher oil prices are easier to afford. Limited oil supply, in contrast, works more like a tax and can be more economically disruptive. So how do we know which one of these it is? Well, there are a lot of things that investors can look at, but the shape of oil prices over time, what we've just been discussing, can be a really useful way to quantify this question. Short term oil prices, we'd argue, tend to be influenced more heavily by the demand for oil. If you're going to go on a long road trip, you're going to fill up at the pump today. Longer term oil prices, in contrast, tend to be more linked to supply, as the producers of that oil really do care about selling it over the next one, two, three and five years. So, if demand is strong, short-term prices should be biased higher. And if supply is more plentiful, longer-term prices tend to be biased lower. That downward shape of prices over time, that 'backwardation', is exactly what we were discussing earlier, and that's what we see today. That, in turn, suggests that the current oil price strength is being driven more by demand than supply. I'll close, however, with the idea that the market might have this long-term trajectory of oil prices wrong. As my colleague Martijn Rats, Morgan Stanley's chief commodity strategist, has recently argued, an expectation of a green transition towards renewable energy has caused investment in new oil drilling to plummet. That should mean less supply over time, challenging the market's current assumption that oil prices will decline significantly over the next several years. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to Thoughts on the Market on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you.

22 Loka 20214min

Sustainably generated hydrogen has great promise as a fuel where electricity alone won’t suffice, but the road to its broad adoption remains complicated for investors to navigate. ----- Transcript -----Jessica Alsford Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jessica Alsford, Global Head of Sustainability Research at Morgan Stanley. Ed Stanley And I'm Ed Stanley, Head of Thematic Research at Morgan Stanley. Jessica Alsford And today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about the investment implications of hydrogen. It's Thursday, October the 21st at 3:00 p.m. in London. Jessica Alsford So Ed, hydrogen has been something we've been looking at for some time, given its potential role in a low carbon economy. So why is it that the debates around green hydrogen seem to have intensified over the last 6 to 12 months? Ed Stanley Great question. Massive, centralized support and road mapping in the form of the European Hydrogen Strategy and the US Infrastructure Bill simultaneously thrust hydrogen to center stage around the world. Ed Stanley But the froth has come and gone to some extent from most of these hydrogen names. And so now it's a really interesting time to be relooking at the space from a stock picking perspective. The number of dedicated hydrogen thematic funds is really beginning to accelerate as well. We've reached 10 hydrogen funds in Europe from only 1 two years ago, and many of the pure play equities that these funds are or will be buying are pretty illiquid, which we expect will lead to further volatility in due course for single name equities. The electrolyzer stocks are up to two thirds of their highs, so the reason why now is that as the market froth subsides, we're beginning to see these thematic alpha opportunities all the way along the supply chain in hydrogen. Jessica Alsford Now, projections by the Hydrogen Council suggest that green hydrogen could enable a global emissions reduction of around 6 gigatons by 2050 - so almost 10% of current global emissions. It also has the potential for unlocking something like 30 million jobs and $2.5T of associated revenues. And yet, despite this huge potential, it does feel that we're still at a very early stage. So why is that? What are some of the challenges around the wider adoption of green hydrogen? Ed Stanley That's right, and I don't think you can fault the ambition. The Hydrogen Council, as you mentioned, is over 200 member companies and they have a clearly defined goal and they're pulling in the same direction. And increasingly, governments are also walking the talk. I guess, though, when you ask our analysts what the greatest hindrances are, if I had to boil them down to two factors, it would be these: first, the lack of standards, and that really means we have dual investment and thus potentially wasted investment going on as each stakeholder has their own vested interests on whether to use PEM or alkaline electrolysis, for example; or whether to retrofit existing pipe networks or to rebuild from scratch. So, a lack of agreement on these dichotomies is a risk of diluting the early stage growth and investment. Ed Stanley And the second is much simpler, actually, it’s economics. Costs for renewable energy, predominantly wind and solar, that feed these very power hungry upstream electrolyzers have fallen substantially in cost - over 90% decline in 10 years. But it still requires cost per unit breakthroughs across the rest of the supply chain; from ammonia, for example, or redesigning jet engines to make it viable, particularly for publicly listed companies to make the necessary investments. Ultimately, we should probably expect very generous subsidies for some time if we are to hit that 6 gigatons value, you mentioned. Jessica Alsford So there are challenges, but also clearly opportunities as well. Where do you think the most value can be created and how should investors participate in this market? Ed Stanley Again, our analysts obviously have their own single stock preferences, of course. But if I were to take a step back and look at the supply chain holistically, it's a question of relative risk reward. For example, upstream, some electrolyzer names have over 100% upside in our view, but that has to be taken in the context of an ongoing debate, as I mentioned, into which electrolyzer technology will become the industry standard, and so at risk potentially putting all your eggs in one basket. At the other end of the spectrum, downstream, rail and aviation has potential, but with extremely long time horizons, which risk compounding forecasting errors several decades away. Ed Stanley So in my mind, some of the best plays are midstream - the chemical names, for example, with best-in-class green ammonia platforms. And you can see that in their excellent intellectual property positioning relative to the rest of the supply chain. Other subsectors include the inspection companies, which will benefit to the tune of 0.5% to 1% of all global hydrogen capex being spent on safety testing. And that's irrespective of which technology or country is the first to roll out. And we don't believe some of those fundamentals are being priced in. So given there's a still very high degree of uncertainty as this technology rolls out, our preference is for midstream and particularly technology and country agnostic companies. Ed Stanley On that note, hydrogen is obviously only one of a handful of decarbonization tools. So, what else do you think has promise in the decarbonization outlook? Jessica Alsford Yes, you're right, Ed. And if we are to achieve a net zero scenario by 2050 and achieve the Paris Agreement, then we need to deploy a range of different strategies. Now one of them may be renewables from a power generation perspective. Solar wind is already economically viable, and we expect to see a huge amount of roll out of renewable power capacity over the coming decades. Elsewhere, we need to see electrification of certain types of energy. The great example being on the auto side as you see movement from the combustion engine to electric vehicles. And though again, although adoption rates are still very low, the stimulus has been set. The policy is outlined to really incentivize this drive from the combustion engine to an EV. So, we're very confident it is only a matter of time before you see that greater adoption of EVs globally. Jessica Alsford Then we come on to some of the more innovative technologies. I think CCS - carbon capture and storage - is a great example of this. Just a few years ago, it was really viewed quite negatively as essentially CCS allows you to still use fossil fuels, whether that be in power generation or in industrial processes like steel and cement manufacturing. But I think now there is a greater acceptance that in some situations we're not going to be completely able to remove all fossil fuels, and so by using CCS technology, you can allow coal/gas to be used, but without emissions as a result of that. And so, I do think that CCS is a really interesting technology to also watch alongside hydrogen as an enabler of a low carbon economy. Ed Stanley That's very clear. And I guess the timing is very opportune to speak to you today because COP26 is approaching. And so, I'm keen to find out from you, what do you think we will see from the world leaders or even corporates in terms of decarbonization pledges? And what impact could that have ultimately on the market for hydrogen longer term? Jessica Alsford Absolutely. So COP26 starts on the 31st of October in Glasgow. It has been delayed since last year because of the pandemic. Two things that I'd particularly point to is, first of all, we would expect many world leaders to step up and announce more ambitious carbon reduction targets. Not everyone currently has a 2050 net zero ambition. And we also now need to see that shorter term trajectory about how are we're going to get there at the right pace of decarbonization as well. So, 2030 reduction targets is also something that we'll be looking for at COP. Jessica Alsford The second area I'd point to is then in terms of global carbon markets. So, the EU has been leading the way for a long time in terms of establishing a very broad and effective carbon market through the Emission Trading Scheme. However, in order to really, again accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy, we need to see a broader adoption of higher carbon taxes, higher carbon prices globally. And why is this important for hydrogen? Well, one of the ways I think that you can really incentivize adoption of hydrogen is to make the higher carbon incumbent alternatives more expensive, and you can do that by pricing carbon at a much higher level. Jessica Alsford So I think the combination of more ambitious carbon reduction targets and more acceptance of the need for higher carbon taxes could be two positive catalysts for hydrogen at COP26. Jessica Alsford Ed, thanks for taking the time to talk today. Ed Stanley Great speaking with you, Jess. Jessica Alsford As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please do take a moment to rate and reviews on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people to find the show.

22 Loka 20219min

The bipartisan infrastructure and ‘Build Back Better’ plans remain in legislative limbo, but what could their passage mean for markets? ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Public Policy Research and Municipal Strategy for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between U.S. public policy and financial markets. It's Wednesday, October 20th at 11:00 a.m. in New York. We spend a lot of time here thinking through exactly how and when Congress will manage to raise the debt ceiling, keep the government open and pass a multitrillion dollar package of spending offset by tax hikes. To be clear, we continue to think it will do all of the above. But for this week, let's deal with DC's policy choices in classic Morgan Stanley Research fashion... by focusing on tangible market impacts. Let's start with new government spending, which can be a positive catalyst in equity sectors such as construction and clean tech: in our view, a conservative estimate is that Congress approves $2.5T over 10 years between both the bipartisan infrastructure and build back better plans. While that amount might fall short of the numbers you might have heard thrown around, it should get your attention. For example, the bipartisan infrastructure framework, which would make up about $500B of this total, would nearly double the US's current baseline infrastructure spend. Our colleagues think this would catalyze an infrastructure ‘supercycle’ where factors like a surge in cement demand could lead to a positive rerating of stocks in the construction sector. Additionally, the framework could include $500B in new spending and tax credits aimed at clean energy production. That means a substantial ramp in demand for clean tech companies, which our colleague Steven Byrd sees as a clear bullish catalyst for that sector. As for corporate taxes - yes, DC is likely to push them higher. Yet for now, we don't see this as more than a near-term challenge that shouldn't get in the way of the positive medium-term outcomes for the equity sectors we've highlighted. As Mike Wilson and the Equity Strategy Team have argued, enacting higher taxes could bring down forward guidance, something investors may not yet be pricing in, given current valuations. In the near term, that may prompt U.S. equity indices to price in a greater chance of a sustained economic slowdown. But such weakness would likely be more of a correction than a bear market signal, as we expect the total fiscal package would ultimately be GDP supportive. Likely incorporating more spending than taxes, our economists expect it to boost net aggregate demand and support the view that the US can continue to grow at a brisk pace in 2022. So, of course, we'll be tracking these policy paths into year end, but it's important to keep an eye on why they matter from a market perspective. We'll stay focused on what's going on, and what you can do about it in your portfolio. 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.

21 Loka 20212min