Andrew Sheets: Are Emerging Markets Reemerging?

With the global demand of oil reaching a new high, the spillover in performance is changing the fortune for energy equities and oil markets.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Martijn Rats, Morgan Stanley's Global Commodity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, Today I'll discuss the recent changes in oil markets and why recently we turned bullish on energy equities once again. It's Thursday, September 14th at 2 p.m. in London. Prices of both crude oil and refined product have risen substantially over the last two months. Brent crude oil is trading once again a little over $90 a barrel, up 20% since the middle of the year. Diesel prices have rallied even more, up 50% since the mid year point and recently surpassing the $1,000 per tonne mark again. After a fairly lackluster first half, this begs the question what has brought about this sudden change in fortune. For starters, oil demand is simply robust. In June, global oil demand reached 103 million barrels a day, a new all time high. But on top of that, the recent crude price rally has been supported by strong production cuts from OPEC, particularly Saudi Arabia. In April, Saudi Arabia still exported 7.4 million barrels per day of crude oil. By August, this had fallen to just 5.4 million barrels a day, that is an unusually sharp drop in a very short space time. On a 100 million barrel per day market, that may not look like much, but this is enough to drive the market into deficits, cause inventories to decline and prices to rise. What has given refined product prices, like diesel, a further boost has been tightness in the global refining system. Capacity closures during COVID, logistical difficulties in replacing Russian crude in European refineries and an unexpectedly large number of unplanned outages, partly because of a hot summer, have effectively curtailed refining capacity. Like last year, it has been all hands on deck in global refining this summer. Whether oil prices and refining margins will still rally a lot further is hard to know, but prices seem well underpinned at current levels. As long as Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC continue their current oil policy, the oil market is simply tight and the current cuts have all the hallmarks of lasting well into next year. On top, we think it will take some time before the current constraints in refining are resolved. Margins may decline somewhat from their current very elevated levels, but we would expect them to remain high by historical standards for some time to come. Then we would also argue that risks to natural gas prices in Europe are once again skewed higher. Prices have fallen substantially this year, and of course, they could fall somewhat further. However, if some tightness returns, they can rally a lot more, skewing that price outlook higher too. Putting this all together creates a favorable outlook for energy equities and that is where our true conviction lies. At the start of the year, we argued that earnings expectations for the energy sector were high and that market sentiment was already bullish and that valuations were stretched. After two years of rating the sector attractive, we downgraded our sector view back in January. However, pretty much all these factors have changed once again. Consensus earnings forecasts have fallen, but given our commodity outlook, we would now expect upgrades to consensus estimates to start coming through once again, making energy possibly the only sector for which this argument can be made. With strong free cash flow ahead, we expect robust dividend growth, strong share buybacks and declining net debt. Combining that with market sentiment that is no longer so buoyant for energy and valuations that have corrected quite a lot, we think energy is once again an attractive sector. Especially for those seeking high income and protection against inflation, against an uncertain geopolitical backdrop. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

14 Sep 20233min

Even though mortgage rates are up 100 points since the beginning of 2023, home prices are likely to stay flat or increase due to tight housing supply.----- Transcript -----Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, co-head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securities Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing U.S. home prices. It's Wednesday, September 13th at 11 a.m. in New York. Jay Bacow: Jim, mortgage rates are up over 100 basis points since the beginning of the year, but I hear you were turning more optimistic on home prices. What gives? Jim Egan: Well, the first thing that I would say is that home price data is pretty lagged and that an increase in mortgage rates is not going to be felt immediately in the data. For instance, let's assume the last week of August ends up being the peak in mortgage rates for this cycle. When would you expect that rate to start showing up in actual purchase mortgages? Jay Bacow: So, if the peak in mortgage rates is the end of August, we will get data on people applying for the mortgage the following week from the Mortgage Bankers Association. But it takes about seven weeks right now to close a mortgage. If the peak was at the end of August, the mortgages are probably closing towards the end of October, almost at Halloween. But if it closes in October, Jim, when will we actually get that data? Jim Egan: Right. The home price data is even more lagged than that. The Case-Shiller prints that we forecast and that we've talked about on this podcast, those come out with a two month delay. So those October sales, we're not going to see until December. Again, for instance, the print we just got at the end of August, that was for home prices in June. Jay Bacow: So in other words, we haven't seen the full impact of this increase in rates yet on the housing market and the data that we can see. But when we do, what's the impact going to be on home prices? Jim Egan: Well, we think the immediate impact is going to be on a few other aspects of the housing market, and then those aspects are going to potentially impact home prices. The most straightforward level here is affordability, right? That's an equation that includes prices, mortgage rates, as well as incomes, and so we're talking about the mortgage rate component. Now, one thing that you and I have said on this podcast before, Jay, is that affordability in the U.S. housing market, it's still challenged, but at least so far this year it really hasn't been getting any worse. That's not the case anymore. Affordability is still very challenged and now it's started to get worse again. By our calculations, the monthly payment on the median priced home is up 18% over the past year, and that's the first time that deterioration has accelerated since October of 2022. Three month and six month changes in affordability have also resumed deteriorating after those were actually improving earlier this year. Jay Bacow: So if homes are getting less affordable, presumably home sales should fall? Jim Egan: We think that would be kind of the probable impact there and it is something that we're seeing. To be clear, affordability is not deteriorating anywhere near as rapidly as it did in 2022, and we don't expect the same sharp declines in home sales. But this really does give us further confidence in our L-shaped forecast, and if anything it could provide a little more pressure on existing home sales. But we're also seeing the impact on the supply side of the equation. Jay Bacow: But wasn't the supply side already incredibly low? For instance, our truly refinanceable index calculates what percent of the universe has at least 25 basis points of incentive to refinance. It's at less than 1% right now. The average outstanding mortgage rate for the agency market is 3.68%. Are we really expecting the supply to fall further? Jim Egan: So that wasn't part of our original forecast and we had been seeing existing inventories really start to climb off of recorded lows. For context, our data there goes back about 40 years, but that's taken an abrupt about face in recent months. The 13% year-over-year decrease in inventory that we just saw this past month, that's the sharpest drop since June 2021, with a contraction coming through both new and existing listings. As affordability has resumed its deterioration with this increase in mortgage rates, homebuilder confidence actually fell month over month for the first time this year. Now, tight supply should continue to provide support to home prices, even as affordability has become more challenged. Jay Bacow: And so what does that support for home prices end up looking like? Jim Egan: The short answer, we expect a return to year-over-year growth with the next print that we're going to get here at the end of September. Case-Shiller year-over-year has actually fallen for each of the past three months. We think that ends now. We have a forecast of plus 0.7% year-over-year with a print that's just about to come out and that would be a new record high. With home prices then surpassing their levels in June of 2022, at least for that index. Our base case forecast for year end has been 0% growth, with our bull case at plus 5%. The evolution of the inputs since particularly the supply point here continues to be tighter than what was already pretty tepid expectations on our part. That has us expecting HPA to finish the year between these two levels, that base case and that bull case level. Jay Bacow: All right, Jim, it's always great talking to you. Jim Egan: Great talking to you, too, Jay. Jay Bacow: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcast app and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

13 Sep 20235min

Economic growth data from the summer has bolstered belief in a possible soft landing in the U.S., while China has experienced a faster-than-expected deterioration in the macro environment.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about our views on the markets as we head into the fall. It's Tuesday, September 12th at 10 a.m. in New York. As many of us head back to school, Morgan Stanley Global economics and strategy teams look back on how the economy and the markets have evolved over the summer and look ahead to what changing narratives mean for the economic outlook and asset markets. Our debate centered on two key issues. One, the outperformance of the U.S. economy and the underperformance of China economy. And two, the recent spike in government bond yields at the longer end of the curve. The U.S. economy has been outperforming our expectations and has led markets over the summer to push out the first expected cut into 2024. The concern is that a still hot economy means that the Fed can keep policy restrictive for longer. Acknowledging the strong incoming data, our economists have revised their 2023 growth expectations significantly higher for the U.S. from 0.4% to 1.7%, even as they maintain that the Fed is done hiking and will be on hold until first quarter of 2024. On the other hand, in China, the trajectory of economic growth has been different. Over the summer, data have been pointing to a faster than expected deterioration in the macro environment. We have seen successive and incremental property and infrastructure easing measures, but market confidence has not returned and debates around earnings, spillover effects on global growth and the impact on commodities are growing. Noting the macro and policy challenges since the mid-year outlook, our China economists have revised their 2023 growth expectations lower for China from 5.7% to 4.7% for 2023. And our emerging market equity strategists have moved to equal weight on China and revise down their MSCI Emerging Market Index target. What about our call to be long duration? Ten year Treasury yields have sold off by about 65 basis points since our mid-year outlook on better than expected U.S. growth data, among other factors. Can this continue? Our strategists make modest changes to their rates forecast, but still see a path for low yields, countering the market narrative of growth reacceleration or a higher treasury supply technical. Thus, we reaffirm our conviction to be long duration, despite the rates market moving away from us. Overall, our conviction on a U.S. soft landing has strengthened. But with monetary policy remaining restrictive, late cycle risks, growth, earnings and defaults remain. We maintain a defensive stance. We prefer bonds over equities and equal-weight stocks, overweight fixed income, underweight commodities, and equal weight cash. Combined with rich valuations, this makes us stay equal-weight equities, with a preference for rest of the world stocks over US stocks. In all, high carry and late cycle environment favor an overweight in fixed income. 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.

12 Sep 20233min

Heading into the end of the year, questions remain around Treasury yields and the neutral interest rate.----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Chief Global Economist. Guneet Dhingra: And I'm Guneet Dhingra, Morgan Stanley's Head of U.S. Trade Strategies. Seth Carpenter: And today on the podcast, we'll be discussing our updated economic and rates outlook for the rest of the year and into 2024. It's Monday, September 11th, at 10 a.m. in New York. Seth Carpenter: All right, Guneet. We are now about a week into September and we can take stock of what we've learned over the summer. For macroeconomists like me we care about growth, inflation, monetary policy, and I'll say this summer spending indicators came in strong, inflation continued to fall, and we had Jackson Hole, the sort of nerd temple for monetary policy. And I have to say we didn't learn quite as much as I hoped, but we kind of know the Fed has done hiking, or at least very close. But I have to say, in your domain, the Treasury yield is trading roughly 4.25%. On the last day of June, when summer began, it was around 380. Can we just attribute the higher rate to thin liquidity and move on? Guneet Dhingra: You're right Seth, it's not just thin liquidity, but the conditions of August definitely played a meaningful part in sending yields higher. Typically, as investors look to go away for August, positive carry trades are the easiest trades to have on, and playing for higher yields has been positive carry. Which is why I think in August this year and even the last year, yields tended to go higher. But beyond August, seasonality, which might be the simplest explanation, investors have 4 major narratives out there that R-star, the so-called neutral rate of interest has increased, the end of yield curve control in Japan, more Treasury supply and more recently at the end of the summer, and increased supply of corporate debt. Guneet Dhingra: So before we go there Seth, you mentioned Jackson Hole at the end of the summer. The idea that some investors have that because the economy has held up so well, despite the Fed's rate hikes, that the underlying neutral rate or R-star must be higher and so will have higher interest rates not just now, but into the future. What is your take on this whole R* debate and what have you learned from Jackson Hole? Seth Carpenter: Absolutely. So I have to say Jackson Hole was very interesting, but this time there were a lot of very academic minded papers there that were very important to talk about. I can see how they can spur debate, but I'm not sure they provide that much that's actionable in the near term for the Fed or even for markets. And when it comes specifically to R-star, color me a bit skeptical and I say that for a few reasons. One, alternate explanations just abound. We could have got stronger spending because there's more residual impetus from the fiscal policy that's already in the pipeline. And in particular, if we look at where we missed our GDP forecast, a really big part of that was nonresidential structures investment. So that could go a long way to explain it. Second, if R-star really was higher, I think that would mean that the Fed would have to raise the peak rate during this hiking cycle even higher, not just rates off in the future. And so what does that mean? That means that I at least would have expected a parallel shift higher in rates, not just along in selling off. And in fact, you might even see a steeper inversion of the curve as the rate goes higher in the near term, but then has to come down later. So take all of that together, and I guess I'm just really not convinced that there's enough evidence to conclude that R-star is higher. Guneet Dhingra: Yeah, makes a lot of sense, Seth. And listening to you about the growth and economic picture, I'm even more convinced that this R-star story doesn't quite hold water. Seth Carpenter: All right, so then there is the yield curve control story. And I will say, at the risk of patting myself on the back, our Japan team had been expecting a tweak to yield curve control in Japan, and we got it. But I know that you're skeptical that that's really the story here. Why do you push back? Guneet Dhingra: Yeah, I think one of the ways you can actually verify the impact of the yield curve control on the U.S Treasury market, is just break down the price action into different time zones. And what you saw is in the Tokyo time zone, where you would expect a lot of the so-called repatriation flows to play out, we haven't really seen much of a movement in U.S Treasury yields ever since the YCC change announcement. So I would say based on the time zone analysis, it doesn't look like YCC changes are really impacting Treasury yields. Seth Carpenter: Okay Guneet, I get it. So it wasn't from trading happening in Tokyo, but these sort of markets are global. There could have been traders in London, traders in New York who were reacting to the change in yield curve control and selling their JGBs. And then the traders in Tokyo wake up and go, oh, nothing to do here. What do you make of that story? Why couldn't that be the explanation that it really was yield curve control? Guneet Dhingra: So if you break it down in the London Time Zone, it actually turns out that Treasury yields have actually gone lower since the YCC announcement in the London Time Zone. To my mind, that speaks to the idea that maybe investors in those time zones are more focused on the weakness in the European economy than any changes to YCC. And speaking of the New York time zone, yes, it is true that the bulk of the sell off in Treasury yields has happened in the New York time zone. But keep in mind, if hedge funds are the only major player selling yields on the back of the YCC, and it's not quite backed up by repatriation flows, it's probably not likely going to be sustainable. Seth Carpenter: Then let's turn to the last one, increased supply of debt, both Treasury debt and corporate debt. So we know that the U.S deficit is high, Issuance will have to continue for some time. We've heard all of the stories about corporates starting to stir in capital markets and issue more. Shouldn't it be logical that if demand for assets is roughly unchanged but the supply goes up, the price will fall, which should lead to a sell off in rates? What do you make of that story? Guneet Dhingra: Yeah, the story is pretty logical, but I don't think it still answers the question. If supply was really the main driver, I would expect to see more of a substantial tightening in so-called swap spreads, which is the gap between Treasury yields and the equivalent swap rates. We haven't really seen much of a tightening in swap spreads, which really undercuts the idea that Treasury supply is already on investors minds. Seth Carpenter: All right. So I think we've gone through a bunch of the narratives, pushd back on a lot of them, maybe debunked them a little bit. I guess the one other question I would have for you is, could it be that markets are waking up to the higher for longer narrative? The Fed's been trying to say that they're going to keep interest rates as high as they need to for as long as they need to in order to bring inflation back to target. Maybe the market's putting more probability on that sort of outcome. Guneet Dhingra: Just to pretend I'm smarter than the economists, I will use the word bear steepening of the curve here. So in my view, the recent bear steepening of the 2s/10s curve is a combination of two things. Number one, there has been very little change in the market implied Fed funds path through the end of 2024. And number two, the back end has moved higher with some combination of August seasonality and belief around a higher R-star. So I would say it is less about the quote unquote higher for longer expectation, but more about the idea that the Fed fund eventually settles at a higher level in the medium term. Seth Carpenter: Okay. I guess that's fair. Let's take a step back, though, and take stock of what it is that we've learned. You and I and our colleagues have published work recently, basically saying, here's the mid-year outlook we published in May, here are the data that we got over the course of the summer. What did we get right and what did we get wrong? I econ, I'd say we got right the continued and pretty rapid fall in inflation in the U.S. and the slowing in the labor market, and I'm pretty proud of that. But boy, we got wrong just how strong the U.S. economy would be. And in very stark contrast, we missed just how weak the Chinese economy would be. Boy, we really thought that there'd be a stronger, more vigorous policy response that would get better traction and we'd see a bigger cyclical rebound. What are your key takeaways from what you and your colleagues in strategy have learned over the summer? Guneet Dhingra: To start with some numbers, we had ten year yields ending at 3.5% by the end of 2023. Currently there are 4.25%. We think we missed two things. First, the market focuses on upside and growth rather than the cooling of inflation. And number two, we missed the investors and how they're behaving, once bitten twice shy, about adding duration until every data point cools down convincingly. Having said that, your forecast is for more cooling and growth and inflation through the year. And so we have only marginally raised our ten year forecast to 3.65% by the end of this year. Seth Carpenter: I have to say, Guneet, every time I talk to you, I learn something new. So thank you for taking the time to talk. Guneet Dhingra: Great speaking with you, Seth. Seth Carpenter: And thanks to the listeners for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

11 Sep 20239min

Both equities and high-yield bonds could benefit from an end to ratings hikes, but may still face risks from company earnings revisions, a potential U.S. government shutdown and other events on the horizon.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Corporate Credit Research at 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, September 8th at 2 p.m. in London. The week after Labor Day is both a refreshing return to more normal market conditions, and a rush. As investors head back to school, so to speak, here are a few big issues that we think they should be focused on. First and most importantly, we think the next few months will be about cementing the idea that both the Fed and the ECB are done raising interest rates for the foreseeable future. Given better than expected core inflation data in the U.S. and worse than expected growth data in Europe, we think neither central bank will raise rates at their meetings this month. And then further out, we think they stay on hold as lowered levels of bank loan growth, slower job growth and a continued decline in core inflation will reinforce the idea that central banks have raised rates enough. For markets, the end of a central bank rate hiking cycle tends to be pretty good for high grade bonds. Indeed, going back over the last 40 years, the dates of the last Fed funds rate increase and the local high point for yields on the U.S. aggregate bond index, line up almost to the month. The logic in this relationship also feels intuitive. If the Fed is done raising rates, one of two things has probably happened. It stopped raising rates at the correct level to bring inflation down without a recession and bonds like that lower inflation and more certainty, or they stopped because they've raised rates too much, slowing growth in inflation much more, a scenario where investors like the safety of bonds. But in riskier markets, the picture greeting investors in September is more murky. Like August, September also tends to see below average returns and above average volatility, and that seasonality doesn't turn helpful until mid-October. Company earnings revisions tend to be weak around this time of year, something our equity strategists believe could repeat. Investors got a lot more optimistic over the summer, raising the hurdle for good news. And there are some specific risk events on the near-term horizon, from a potential shutdown of the US government to a strike in the auto industry. For equities and high yield bonds, we therefore think investors should exercise more patience. A third issue investors will be watching is supply. September is historically one of the heaviest months of the year for corporate bond issuance, but with corporate bond yields now at some of their highest levels in nearly 20 years, will that reduce the incentive for companies to borrow? And meanwhile, one of the reasons assigned to the recent rise in US government bond yields has been the high levels of government borrowing. The next few weeks will give a much better idea of the true impact of that potential supply. 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.

8 Sep 20233min

A strong El Niño event in the coming months could have negative effects for food inflation, commodities markets and climate change.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Stephen Byrd, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Sustainability Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives today, I'll discuss the global risks and impact from a potential El Niño event later this year. It's Thursday, September 7th at 10 a.m. in New York. Over the last few months, as you've been doing your backyard grilling or taking a well-deserved summertime vacation, you may have heard a passing news reference to a climate pattern called El Niño. And although I'm an equity analyst and not a meteorologist, I'm going to talk about El Niño today because it could have some significant impacts for investors. To explain, El Niño refers to a warming of the ocean surface or above average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. It's the counterpart to La Niña, which refers to the cooling effect of the same ocean surfaces. Essentially, El Niño and La Niña represent opposite extremes in the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO. ENSO follows cyclical patterns that repeat at a 2 to 7 year cadence and tend to peak in the November to February window. Current conditions imply about a 70% probability that we could be facing a moderate to strong El Niño event later this year with a range of potentially significant impacts across regions and industries. First, although El Niño starts in the Pacific equator area, it has a significant impact on global weather. El Niño tends to peak around year end, impacting global rains and temperatures. El Niño driven seasonal patterns in the U.S., Argentina and the Andes tend to be wet, while those in Southeast Asia, Australia, Brazil, Colombia and Africa tend to be dry. This dynamic creates conditions that move wildfires and hurricanes from the Atlantic into the Pacific area. El Niño events also impact the global economy and the environmental, social and governance, or ESG, factors for businesses worldwide. More specifically, a moderate to strong El Niño in combination with the Russia-Ukraine war could impact food inflation, raising questions about the emerging markets central banks easing cycles. It could also impact trade and GDP in agro-related economies such as Argentina, India, Australia, Brazil and Colombia, among others. It may also impact several commodities, including sugar, grains, animal meal, proteins, electricity, lithium, copper, iron ore, aluminum and coal. El Niño’s effects can be positive or negative for different sectors and regions. For example, El Niño tends to be a negative in emerging markets. In Latin America, given the size of the agricultural sector and the spillover effect of agriculture into other industries, growth could be affected significantly. The recession we expect in Argentina this year is partially driven by La Niña, which generated an unprecedented drought. We expect El Niño to help grain yields in Argentina and to provide significant positive base effects to GDP in 2024. Finally, when it comes to ESG, El Niño can exacerbate climate change impacts and increase concentrations of greenhouse gasses. Since this is a global issue and impacts all sectors to various degrees, we believe investors should pay close attention. Furthermore, the humanitarian impact of El Niño lasts long after the phenomenon itself, be it through impacts on food security and malnutrition, disease outbreaks, disrupted basic services and sanitation or significant impacts on livelihoods around the world. Typically, extreme weather events hit the poorest communities the hardest. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people to find the show.

7 Sep 20233min

Investors anticipate new legislation on tech regulation, AI and defense, amid speculation about a potential government shutdown.-----Transcription -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about Congress coming back in the session and its impact on markets. It's Wednesday, September 6th, at 10 a.m. in New York. Congress returns from summer break this week with a full agenda. Expect to see tons of headlines on various policies that markets care about. Tech regulation, artificial intelligence regulation, defense spending, disaster relief aid and the risk of a government shutdown, are just some of the issues that should be tackled. It can be a bit overwhelming, so here's our cheat sheet for September in D.C. to help cut through the noise and understand why this could be a good set up for U.S bonds. On tech regulation and A.I, don't expect any meaningful movement here. New versions of legislative proposals on data privacy and liability for spreading misinformation may come, but there's still no comprehensive bipartisan agreement that could turn proposals into law. So we continue to expect that this only becomes possible after the 2024 election delivers a new government makeup. On defense spending, we expect that aid to Ukraine will continue and the Congress will approve overall defense spending levels in excess of the cap set by the agreement put in place alongside the hike of the debt ceiling. There's bipartisan agreement here, with the exception of House Republicans. Resolving issues with those holdouts will likely take brinkmanship over a government shutdown and perhaps even an actual government shutdown, but ultimately we see a deal that should be positive for a defense sector which has benefited recently by elevated spending by Western governments. The biggest story to track, though, is that risk of a government shutdown. As we previously discussed on this podcast, a shutdown is a real risk because House Republicans are not in sync with the rest of the House of Representatives and Senate on spending levels for fiscal 2024. Further, there's the sense that both sides may rightly or wrongly perceive political value in a shutdown. So there's both motive and opportunity here. And while a shutdown on its own is not sufficient to ruin our economists' expectation of a soft landing for the U.S. economy, it does add some fresh downside risk to growth in the 4th quarter, which economists already expect would be challenged. Major entertainment events in the U.S. boosted consumption above expectations this summer, and those effects should start to wane at the same time that the student loan moratorium rolls off, meaning many households will again have to direct some level of their income away from consumption toward servicing loans come October 1st. Put it all together, and it's a strong rationale for our view that high grade bonds have value here. U.S. government bond yields should be near their peak, with the market moving beyond the notion that the Fed may have to hike substantially more this economic cycle. 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.

6 Sep 20232min

While valuations may be on the rise, fears around the resiliency of the economy could return and leave unguarded investors on uneven footing.----- 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 Tuesday, September 5th at 10 a.m. in New York. So let's get after it. In a world of price momentum, opinions about the fundamentals are often driven by the direction of price. Some of this is due to the view that markets are all knowing and often the best leading indicator for the fundamentals. After all, stocks are discounting machines and tell us what's likely to happen in the future rather than what is happening today. The old adage "buy the rumor and sell the news", is another way to think about this relationship. Using this philosophy, the move higher in stocks this year has provided the confidence for many to turn fundamentally bullish from what was an overly bearish consensus backdrop in the first quarter. The entire move in the major U.S. equity averages this year has been the result of higher valuations. However, with forward price earnings multiples reaching 20 times on the S&P 500 last month, not only are stocks anticipating higher earnings and growth, but they now require it. The other reason price momentum works has little to do with the fundamental outlook. Instead, price momentum often leads investors to chase or sell that momentum. It's human nature to want to go with the trend both up and down. Most were too negative on the economy at the beginning of the year, including us. The failure of a few large regional banks and negative price reaction in the stock market reinforced that view. However, when the recession didn't arrive, there was a fundamental reason to reverse that view. The price action in April and May supported that pivot, further feeding the bullish narrative. However, the move in price was very narrow, led by just a handful of Mega-cap growth stocks. In June, breadth improved, dragging investor confidence toward the optimistic fundamental outcome. But since then, breath has rolled over again and remains weak. We recommend maintaining a late cycle mindset, which means a barbell of growth stocks and defensive, not cyclicals or smaller stocks. Going into the second quarter earnings season we suggested it would be a "sell the news event", mainly because stocks had rallied in the mid-July, which was a change from the past several quarters where stocks trended weaker into results. Now that earnings season is over, we know that the price reaction post reporting was some of the weakest we've witnessed in the past decade. We think stocks may be starting to question the sustainability of the economic resiliency we experienced in the first half of the year. Defensives and growth stocks have done better than cyclicals. As an aside, the earnings results have not kept pace with the economy this year outside of a few areas which have been driven mostly by cost cutting rather than top line growth which furthers the idea we are still late cycle, not early or mid. This past week, equity prices have rebounded sharply, led once again by growth stocks. With softer economic data weighing on Treasury yields, stock market participants seem willing to bid valuations back up on the view the late cycle environment is being extended once again. With inadequate evidence to affirm or contradict that view, price continues to be the governing factor for many investors' conclusions about where we are in the cycle. Bottom line price momentum is a key driver of sentiment, especially in a late cycle environment when uncertainty about the outcome is high. We continue to recommend a more defensive growth posture in one's portfolio given that the fears of recession or financial distress could return at any moment in the late cycle environment in which we find ourselves, particularly as we enter September. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcast app. It help's more people to find the show.

5 Sep 20233min