Cautious Corporate Boards Extend the Credit Cycle

A strong economy and global stock market surge may suggest market euphoria. However, our Head of Corporate Credit Research explains why the corporate sector caution is, in fact, a good sign.

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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the surprising lack of confidence in corporate boardrooms, and why it could extend the cycle.

It's Thursday, June 13th at 2pm in London.

“Buy low, sell high.” That age-old advice is rooted in the idea that investors should try to buy when others are fearful and sell when others are euphoric. The high in prices, after all, should occur when people are as positive, and things are as good as they can possibly be.

At the moment, there is plenty of focus on this idea that the market pendulum may have swung too far towards excessive positivity. The economy is strong, with US growth tracking above 2 per cent, inflation moderating and the unemployment rate still near a 60 year low. US and global stock markets are near all-time highs. And many quantitative measures of investor optimism are elevated, whether it's the low levels of expected volatility, polls of investor outlooks or ownership of equity futures.

But we think there is one missing piece of this story, with relevance for credit and beyond. While investors are optimistic, corporate boardrooms remain much more restrained. And that caution could help extend the cycle.

One way to measure corporate optimism is whether or not companies are adding debt; a company is more likely to borrow when it feels better about the future. Well, as of the first quarter of 2024, the growth in US non-financial corporate borrowing was at a 10-year low. And among lower rated borrowers, the issuance of high yield bonds and loans remains dominated by borrowing to repay or refinance existing debt – the most conservative type of issuance that you can get.

Another way to measure corporate optimism is Mergers & Acquisitions, or M&A, as it really takes confidence in the future to acquire another company. Well, global M&A volumes in 2023 were the lowest, adjusted for the size of the economy in over 30 years. While this has picked up a bit, and we do think M&A recovers significantly over the next two years, it’s currently still very low.

On the surface, there are plenty of signs that investors are entering the summer optimistic. But the corporate sector remains surprisingly restrained, especially given that solid economic data, record profits and record highs in the stock market. We’d further note that the Tech sector, where there is more optimism and much more investment spending, generally isn’t borrowing to fund this, and also enjoys unusually strong balance sheets.

All of this matters because it’s been high levels of corporate optimism that have often been very bad for credit, as it’s excessive optimism that often leads to excessive risk taking, hubris, and an eventual payback that is bad for lenders. The lack of optimism, at the moment, is a good sign, and one of several reasons why we think spreads can remain tight, and the credit cycle has further to run.

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