Tariffs Could Drag on Growth in Asia as Well as U.S.

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson discusses how market volatility over the last month will affect equity markets as earnings season begins.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, I will discuss what to expect from Equity markets as we enter the heart of earnings season. It's Monday, April 28th at 11:30am in New York. So, let’s get after it. The S&P 500 tested both the lower and upper ends of our 5000-5500 range last week, reinforcing the notion that we remain in a volatile trading environment. Incrementally positive news on a potential tariff deal with China and hope for a more dovish Fed lifted stocks into the end of the week, and the S&P 500 closed slightly above the upper end of our range. While a modest overshoot of 5500 can persist very short-term, a sustainable break above this level is dependent on developments that have yet to come to fruition. Those include a tariff deal with China that brings down the effective rate materially; a more dovish Fed; 10-year Treasury yields falling below 4 percent without recessionary risks increasing; and a clear rebound in earnings revisions. Bottom line, until we see clear positive shift in one or more of these factors, range trading is likely to continue with risks to the downside given that we are now at the top end of the range. A frequent question we're getting from clients is does the soft data matter for equities or is the market waiting for the hard data to make up its mind in terms of an upside or downside breakout above or below this range? Our view has been consistent that the most important macro data at this stage is from the labor market while the most important micro data are earnings revisions. Equities have already priced a meaningful slowdown in growth relative to expectations. What's not priced is a labor cycle or recession. While this risk has been reduced to some extent given the recent, more dovish tone shift on tariffs from the administration, it's far from extinguished. Until we see clear evidence over multiple months that the labor market remains solid, a recession will likely remain a coin toss. One soft data point to pay attention to this week that could move the market is the April ISM Manufacturing data on May 1st. Recall this series accelerated the August 2024 selloff ahead of a soft July payroll report. The most important takeaway from an equity strategy perspective is to stay up the quality curve. No matter what the hard data says, we remain in a late cycle backdrop where both quality and large cap relative outperformance should continue. While uncertainty remains higher than usual, defensives should continue to do well. However, given their relative outperformance over the past year, it also makes sense to pick spots in high quality cyclicals that have already discounted a material slowdown in both macro conditions and earnings. To be clear, this is not a blanket call on cyclicals; it's a selective, stock-specific one. More specifically, look for quality, cyclical stocks that are more de-risked based on what the stocks are pricing from a forward earnings growth standpoint. See our written research for stock screens. And from a global standpoint, we recommend favoring U.S. over international equities at this point as a weaker dollar should benefit U.S. relative earnings revisions, particularly versus Europe and Japan. Furthermore, less volatile earnings growth and a higher quality bias should benefit the U.S. on a relative basis in today's late cycle backdrop. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

28 Apr 20253min

Our Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan explain how mortgage rates, tariffs and stock market volatility are affecting the U.S. housing market.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. And today we're here to talk about all of the headlines that we've been seeing and how they impact the U.S. housing market.It's Thursday, April 24th at 9am in New York.Jay Bacow: Jim, there are a lot of headlines right now. Mortgage rates have decreased about 60 basis points from the highs that we saw in January through the beginning of April. But since the tariff announcements, they've retraced about half of that move. Now, speaking of the tariffs, I would imagine that's going to increase the cost of building homes.So, what does all of this mean for the U.S. housing market?James Egan: On top of everything you just mentioned, the stock market is down over 15 per cent from recent peaks, so there is a lot going on these days. We think it all has implications for the U.S. housing market. Where do you want me to start?Jay Bacow: I think it's hard to have a conversation these days without talking about tariffs, so let's start there.James Egan: So, we worked on the impacts of tariffs on the U.S. housing market with our colleagues in economics research, and we did share some of the preliminary findings on another episode of this podcast a couple weeks ago. Since then, we have new estimates on tariffs, and that does raise our baseline expectation from about a 4 to 5 per cent increase in the cost of materials used to build a home to closer to 8 per cent right now.Jay Bacow: Now I assume at least some of that 8 per cent is going to get pushed through into home prices, which presumably is then going to put more pressure on affordability. And given the – I don't know – couple hundred conversations that you and I have had over the past few years, I am pretty sure affordability's already under a lot of pressure.James Egan: It is indeed. And this is also coming at a time when new home sales are playing their largest role in the U.S. housing market in decades. New home sales, as a percent of total, make up their largest share since 2006. New homes for sale – so now talking about the inventory piece of this – they’re making up their largest share of the homes that are listed for sale every month in the history of our data. And that's going back to the early 1980s.Jay Bacow: And since presumably the cost of construction is much higher on a new home sale than an existing home sale, that's going to have an even bigger impact now than it has when we look to the history where new home sales were making up a much smaller portion of housing activity.James Egan: Right, and we're already seeing this impact come through on the home builder side of this, specifically weighing on home builder sentiment and single unit building volumes. Through the first quarter of this year, single unit housing starts are down 6 per cent versus the first quarter of 2024.Jay Bacow: All right. And we're experiencing a housing shortage already; but if building volumes are going to come down, then presumably that puts upward pressure on home prices. Now, Jim, you mentioned home builder sentiment. But there's got to be home buyer sentiment right now. And that can't feel very good given the sell off in equity markets and what that does with home buyer's ability to afford to put down money for down payment. So how does that all affect the housing market?James Egan: Now that's a question that we've been getting a lot over the past couple weeks. And to answer it, we took a look at all of the times that the stock market has fallen by at least 20 per cent over the past few decades.Jay Bacow: I assume when you looked at that, the answers weren't very good.James Egan: You know, it depends on the question. We identified 10 instances of at least a 20 per cent drawdown in equity markets over the past few decades. For eight of them, we have sufficient home price data. Outside of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), which you could argue was a housing led global recession, every other instance saw home prices actually climb during the equity market correction.Jay Bacow: So, people were buying homes during a drawdown in the equity market?James Egan: No home prices were climbing. But in every instance, and here we can go back a little bit further, sales declined during the drawdown. Now, once stock markets officially bottomed, sales climbed sharply in the following 12 months. But while stock prices were falling, so were sales.And Jay, at the top of this podcast, you mentioned mortgage rate volatility. That matters a lot here…Jay Bacow: Can you elaborate on why I said something so thoughtful?James Egan: Well, it's because you're a very thoughtful person. But why mortgage rate volatility matters here? While sales volumes fall in all instances, the magnitude of that decrease falls into two distinct camps. There are four of these roughly 10 instances, where the decrease in sales volumes is large; it exceeds 10 per cent. And again, one of those was that GFC – housing led global recession. But the other three all had mortgage rates increased by at least 200 basis points alongside the equity market selloff.Jay Bacow: So not only were people feeling less wealthy, but homes were getting more expensive. That just seems like a double whammy.James Egan: Bingo. And there were more instances where rates did actually decrease amid the equity market selloff. And while that didn't stop sales from falling, it did contain the decrease. In each of these instances, sales were virtually flat to down low single digits. So, call it a 3 or 4 per cent drop.Jay Bacow: All right, so that's a really good history lesson. What's going to happen now? We've been talking about the housing market being at almost trough turnover rates already for some time.James Egan: Right, so when we think about the view forward, and you talk about trough turnover rates, I've said some version of this statement on this podcast a few times…Jay Bacow [crosstalk]: You’re saying it again…James Egan: … but there’s some level of housing activity that has to occur regardless of where rates and affordability are. And coming into this year, we really thought we were at those levels. I'm not saying we don't still think that we're there, but if mortgage rates were to stay elevated like they are today as we're recording this podcast, amid this broader equity market volatility, we do think that could introduce a little bit more downside to sales volumes.Jay Bacow: All right, but if we've got this equity drawdown, then I feel like we've been getting other questions from homeowners’ ability to pay for these mortgages – and delinquencies in the pipeline. Do you have anything to highlight there?James Egan: Yes, so I think one of the things we've also highlighted with respect to the unique situation that we're in in the US housing market is – just how low effective mortgage rates are on the outstanding universe versus the prevailing rate today.We've talked about the implications of the lock-in effect. But if we take a closer look on just how much bifurcation that's led to in terms of household mortgage payments as a share of income, depending on when you bought your house. If you bought your house back in 2016, your income, if we at least look at median income growth, is up in the interim.You probably refinanced in 2020 when mortgage rates came down. That monthly payment as a share of today's income, today's median household income, roughly 8.5 per cent. If you bought up the median priced home at prevailing rates in 2024, you're talking about a payment to income north of 26 per cent. When we look at performance from a mortgage perspective, we are seeing real delineations by vintage of mortgage origination – with mortgages before 2021, behaving a lot better than mortgages after 2021. So the 2022 to [20]24 vintages.I would highlight that losses and foreclosures, those remain incredibly contained. We expect them to stay that way. But when we think about all of this on a go forward basis, we do think that mortgage rate volatility is going to be important for sales volumes next year. But everything we talked about should lead to continued support for home prices. They're growing at 4 per cent year-over-year now. By the end of the year, maybe 2 to 3 per cent growth. So, a little bit of deceleration, but still climbing home prices.Jay Bacow: Interesting. So normally we talk about the housing market. It's location, location, location. But it sounds like the timing of when you bought is also going to impact things as well. Jim, always a pleasure talking to you.James Egan: Pleasure talking to you too, Jay. And to our listeners, thanks for listening. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

24 Apr 20258min

Morgan Stanley’s Head of European Consumer Staples, Sarah Simon, discusses why aging populations, wellness trends and Gen Z’s moderation are putting pressure on the long-term outlook for alcoholic beverages.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Sarah Simon, Head of the European Consumer Staples team. Today’s topic: Is America sobering up? Recent trends point to a national decline in alcohol use.It's Wednesday, April 23rd, at 2pm in London.Picture this: It's Friday night, and you're at a bar with friends. The drinks menu offers many options. A cold beer or glass of wine, sure. But how about a Phony Negroni. And your friends nod approvingly.This isn't just a passing trend – we believe it's a structural shift that's set to reshape the beverage industry. Overall alcohol consumption in volume terms has been relatively flat over the last decade in the U.S. - with spirits growing mid single digits in value terms and beer growing low single digits. But both categories are currently declining. The big debate is whether it’s cyclical or structural. We acknowledge that the consumer is under pressure right now, but we equally see long term structural pressures that are starting to play out. There are three key factors behind this trend: increased moderation by younger drinkers, an ageing population, and then broader health and wellness trends. So let’s talk first about Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012. They're drinking notably less than previous generations of the same age. In fact, today’s 18-34 year-olds drink 30 per cent less than the same age group 20 years ago. And we think it’s pretty unlikely they will catch up as they get older. This isn't a temporary blip caused by the after-effects of COVID-19 lockdowns or economic pressures. It's a long-term trend that predates both of these factors. And importantly this isn’t the case of abstinence – as in the case of tobacco – but moderation. Younger generations are simply drinking less alcohol and allocating more of their beverage spending towards soft drinks. Secondly, developed market populations are ageing. If we look at population data, we see it’s today’s 45-55 year old age group that drinks the most alcohol; and has exhibited the highest growth in consumption and spending over the last 20 years. However, over the next 20 years, this cohort is likely to cut back on drinking due to physiological reasons as they age. The body simply becomes less able to metabolize alcohol, and there’s much higher usage of prescription medication in the over 65 age group. And in just the same way that this cohort was growing faster than the population overall over the last 20 years – because of the higher birth rate in the late 60s and 70s – in future, the aging of these GenX-ers will drive outsized growth in the number of people aged over 75, who consume much less alcohol. And so, the result is a disproportionate impact on overall alcohol consumption. And on top of this, there’s increased adoption of GLP-1 weight loss drugs that we’ve talked about previously. And increasingly negative perceptions of the health implications of alcohol – as the broader health and wellness trend takes hold. On the flip side, there's also a growing acceptance of non-alcoholic beverages, driven by better products and broader distribution. We expect low- and zero-alcohol alternatives to gain a larger share of the market as a result. And we think beer looks particularly well-positioned; it already accounts for about 85 per cent of the non-alcoholic market overall. And this year in the U.S., non-alcoholic beer has nearly doubled its share of U.S. beer retail sales, compared to where it was in 2021. Now it’s still small, but the growth rate in the well over 20 per cent range, suggests that share gain will continue. Meanwhile, we’re seeing more mocktails on menus and zero-alcohol beer on draft in pubs. All of this is further contributing to less stigma associated with not drinking alcohol. And all these trends add up to one conclusion, we think: earnings pressures on alcohol makers are not simply cyclical but structural. They have been underway even prior to COVID. And looking to the future, we think they’re here to stay. So now, many more people can say cheers to that. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And tell your friends about us too.

23 Apr 20255min

Our Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Serena Tang discusses the market’s shifting perception of risk and what’s behind some unusual patterns in fund flows among asset classes.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. No investment recommendation is made with respect to any of the ETFs or mutual funds referenced herein. Investors should not rely on the information included in making investment decisions with respect to those funds. ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. Today I want to look at how investors are playing defense amid elevated macro uncertainty.It’s Tuesday, April 22, at 10am in New York.So, the last three weeks have brought intense volatility to global markets, and investors have had to reexamine their relationship with risk. Typically, in times like these, mutual fund and ETF flows from stocks into bonds serve as a clear gauge of investor defensiveness. But this pattern hasn’t really been informative this time around.Instead, flows to gold – rather than bonds – have been the clearest evidence of flight-to-quality most recently. Between April 3rd and 11th almost US$5 billion went into gold ETFs globally, one of the strongest seven-day net flow stretches ever. There's been US$22 billion of net inflows to gold ETFs with assets under management totaling about US$250 billion year-to-date. Of the 10 days of the highest net inflows to gold ETFs over the last 20 years, three occurred in the last month.Cash also benefited from the dash to defensives, with over US$100bn flowing into money market funds year-to-date. And we expect that reallocating to cash will be a theme for the rest of the year for many reasons. For one, our U.S. economists expect no Fed cuts in 2025 and back-loaded cuts in 2026 following a projected surge in core PCE inflation from tariffs. This means that money market fund yields should stay higher for longer. And with investors seeing the wild gyrations in safe government bonds in recent weeks, money market funds’ low volatility offer a strong risk/reward argument over holding Treasuries. For another, let's say our economists' base case is incorrect, and we do get steep cuts from the Fed sooner rather than later. That probably means we're on the brink of a recession; and in that situation, cash is king.You know what's been particularly surprising in the middle of this recent flight to quality? Outflows from high-grade US fixed income. These outflows are notable because U.S. Treasuries, Agency mortgages, and investment grade credit are usually seen as low-beta and defensives. But U.S. high-grade bonds saw net outflows of approximately US$1.4bn during the week of April 7th. These are the largest outflows since the pandemic; and we think that this trend can continue.So we need to ask ourselves if this is the end of American exceptionalism. And are we seeing a rotation from U.S. assets into rest-of-the-world?The answer may surprise you, but despite the outflows in U.S. bonds, there hasn’t really been a persistent rotation out of U.S. risk assets and into rest-of-world markets. At least not a lot of evidence in the data yet. U.S. equity investors still have a strong home bias, and we've seen continued net buying from Japanese and euro area investors of foreign equities – at least some of which are U.S. equities. We think investors should stay defensive amid the current uncertainty. But figuring out what's actually defensive has been challenging. This recent turmoil in the global markets suggests that the investors’ shifting idea of what's risky is a risk in itself. 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.

22 Apr 20254min

Can the U.S. equity market break out of its expected range? Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson looks at whether the Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy and Fed uncertainty will continue weighing down stocks.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, I will discuss what it will take for the US equity market to break out of the 5000-5500 range. It's Monday, April 21st at 11:30am in New York.So, let’s get after it.Last week, we focused on our view that the S&P 500 was likely to remain in a 5000-5500 range in the near term given the constraints on both the upside and the downside. First, on the upside, we think it will be challenging for the index to break through prior support of 5500 given the recent acceleration lower in earnings revisions, uncertainty on how tariff negotiations will progress and the notion that the Fed appears to be on hold until it has more clarity on the inflationary and growth impacts of tariffs and other factors. At the same time, we also believe the equity market has been contemplating all of these challenges for much longer than the consensus acknowledges. Nowhere is this evidence clearer than in the ratio of Cyclical versus Defensive stocks as discussed on this podcast many times. In fact, the ratio peaked a year ago and is now down more than 40 per cent.Coming into the year, we had a more skeptical view on growth than the consensus for the first half due to expectations that appeared too rosy in the context of policy sequencing that was likely to be mostly growth negative to start. Things like immigration enforcement, DOGE, and tariffs. Based on our industry analysts' forecasts, we were also expecting AI Capex growth to decelerate, particularly in the first half of the year when growth rate comparisons are most challenging. Recall the Deep Seek announcement in January that further heightened investor concerns on this factor. And given the importance of AI Capex to the overall growth expectations of the economy, this dynamic remains a major consideration for investors. A key point of today’s episode is that just as many were overly optimistic on growth coming into the year, they may be getting too pessimistic now, especially at the stock level. As the breakdown in cyclical stocks indicate, this correction is well advanced both in price and time, having started nearly a year ago. Now, with the S&P 500 closing last week very close to the middle of our range, the index appears to be struggling with the uncertainty of how this will all play out.Equities trade in the future as they try to discount what will be happening in six months, not today. Predicting the future path is very difficult in any environment and that is arguably more difficult today than usual, which explains the high volatility in equity prices. The good news is that stocks have discounted quite a bit of slowing at this point. It’s worth remembering the factors that many were optimistic about four-to-give months ago—things like de-regulation, lower interest rates, AI productivity and a more efficient government—are still on the table as potential future positive catalysts. And markets have a way of discounting them before it's obvious.However, there is also a greater risk of a recession now, which is a different kind of slowdown that has not been fully priced at the index level, in our view. So as long as that risk remains elevated, we need to remain balanced with our short-term views even if we believe the odds of a positive outcome for growth and equities are more likely than consensus does over the intermediate term. Hence, we will continue to range trade.Further clouding the picture is the fact that companies face more uncertainty than they have since the early days of the pandemic. As a result, earnings revisions breadth is now at levels rarely witnessed and approaching downside extremes assuming we avoid a recession. Keep in mind that these revisions peaked almost a year ago, well before the S&P 500 topped, further supporting our view that this correction is much more advanced than acknowledged by the consensus. This is why we are now more interested in looking at stocks and sectors that may have already discounted a mild recession even if the broader index has not. Bottom line, if a recession is averted, markets likely made their lows two weeks ago. If not, the S&P 500 will likely take those lows out. There are other factors that could take us below 4800 in a bear case outcome, too. For example, the Fed decides to raise rates due to tariff-driven inflation; or the term premium blows out, taking 10-year Treasury yields above 5 per cent without any growth improvement.Nevertheless, we think recession probability is the wildcard now that markets are wrestling with. In S&P terms, we think 5000-5500 is the appropriate range until this risk is either confirmed or refuted by the hard data – with labor being the most important. In the meantime, stay up the quality curve with your equity portfolio.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

21 Apr 20255min

Our analysts Michael Zezas and Erik Woodring discuss the ways tariffs are rewiring the tech hardware industry and how companies can mitigate the impact of the new U.S. trade policy.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Public Policy Research.Erik Woodring: And I'm Erik Woodring, Head of the U.S. IT Hardware team.Michael Zezas: Today, we continue our tariff coverage with a closer look at the impact on tech hardware. Products such as your smartphone, computers, and other personal devices.It's Thursday, April 17th at 10am in New York.President Trump's reciprocal tariffs announcements, followed by a 90 day pause and exemptions have created a lot of turmoil in the tech hardware space. People started panic buying smartphones, worried about rising costs, only to find out that smartphones may or may not be exempted.As I pointed out on this podcast before, these tariffs are also significantly accelerating the transition to a multipolar world. This process was already well underway before President Trump's second term, but it's gathering steam as trade pressures escalate. Which is why I wanted to talk to you, Erik, given your expertise.In the multipolar world, IT hardware has followed a China+1 strategy. What is the strategy, and does it help mitigate the impact from tariffs?Erik Woodring: Historically, most IT hardware products have been manufactured in China. Starting in 2018, during the first Trump administration, there was an effort by my universe to diversify production outside of China to countries friendly with China – including Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Thailand. This has ultimately helped to protect from some tariffs, but this does not make really any of these countries immune from tariffs given what was announced on April 2nd.Michael Zezas: And what do the current tariffs – recognizing, of course, that they could change – what do those current tariffs mean for device costs and the underlying stocks that you cover?Erik Woodring: In short, device costs are going up, and as it relates to my stocks, there's plenty of uncertainty. If I maybe dig one level deeper, when the first round of tariffs were announced on April 2nd, the cumulative cost that my companies were facing from tariffs was over $50 billion. The weighted average tariff rate was about 25 per cent. Today, after some incremental announcements and some exemptions, the ultimate cumulative tariff cost that my universe faces is about $7 billion. That is equivalent to an average tariff rate of about 7 per cent. And what that means is that device costs on average will go up about 5 per cent.Of course, there are some that won't be raised at all. There are some device costs that might go up by 20 to 30 per cent. But ultimately, we do expect prices to go up and as a result, that creates a lot of uncertainties with IT hardware stocks.Michael Zezas: Okay, so let's make this real for our listeners. Suppose they're buying a new device, a smartphone, or maybe a new laptop. How would these new tariffs affect the consumer price?Erik Woodring: Sure. Let's use the example of a smartphone. $1000 smartphone typically will be imported for a cost of maybe $500. In this current tariff regime, that would mean cost would go up about $50. So, $1000 smartphone would be $1,050.You could use the same equivalent for a laptop; and then on the enterprise side, you could use the equivalent of a server, an AI server, or storage – much more expensive. Meaning while the percentage increase in the cost will be the same, the ultimate dollar expense will go up significantly more.Michael Zezas: And so, what are some of the mitigation strategies that companies might be able to use to lessen the impact of tariffs?Erik Woodring: If we start in the short term, there's two primary mitigation strategies. One is pulling forward inventory and imports ahead of the tariff deadline to ultimately mitigate those tariff costs. The second one would be to share in the cost of these tariffs with your suppliers. For IT hardware, there's hundreds of suppliers and ultimately billions of dollars of incremental tariff costs can be somewhat shared amongst these hundreds of companies.Longer term, there are a few other mitigation strategies. First moving your production out of China or out of even some of these China+1 countries to more favorable tariff locations, perhaps such as Mexico. Many products which come from Mexico in my universe are exempted because of the USMCA compliance. So that is a kind of a medium-term strategy that my companies can use.Ultimately, the medium-term strategy that's going to be most popular is raising prices, as we talked about. But some of my companies will also leverage affordability tools to make the cost ultimately borne out over a longer period of time. Meaning today, if you buy a smartphone over two-year of an installment plan, they could extend this installment plan to three years. That means that your monthly cost will go down by 33 per cent, even if the price of your smartphone is rising.And then longer term, ultimately, the mitigation tool will be whether you decide to go and follow the process of onshoring. Or if you decide to continue to follow China+1 or nearshoring, but to a greater extent.Michael Zezas: Right. So, then what about onshoring – that is moving production capacity to the U.S.? Is this a realistic scenario for IT hardware companies?Erik Woodring: In reality, no. There is some small volume production of IT hardware projects that is done in the United States. But the majority of the IT hardware ecosystem outside of the United States has been done for a specific reason. And that is for decades, my companies have leveraged skilled workers, skilled in tooling expertise. And that has developed over time, that is extremely important. Tech CEOs have said that the reason hardware production has been concentrated in China is not about the cost of labor in the country, but instead about the number of skilled workers and the proximity of those skilled workers in one location. There's also the benefit of having a number of companies that can aggregate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of workers, in a specific factory space. That just makes it much more difficult to do in the United States. So, the headwinds to onshoring would be just the cost of building facilities in the United States. It would be finding the skilled labor. It would be finding resources available for building these facilities. It would also be the decision whether to use skilled labor or humanoids or robots.Longer term, I think the decision most of my companies will have to face is the cost and time of moving your supply chain, which will take longer than three years versus, you know, the current presidential term, which will last another, call it three and a half years.Michael Zezas: Okay. And so how does all of this impact demand for tech hardware, and what's your outlook for the industry in the second half of this year?Erik Woodring: There's two impacts that we're seeing right now. In some cases, more mission critical products are being pulled forward, meaning companies or consumers are going and buying their latest and greatest device because they're concerned about a future pricing increase.The other impact is going to be generally lower demand. What we're most concerned about is that a pull forward in the second quarter ultimately leads to weaker demand in the second half – because generally speaking, uncertainty, whether that's policy or macro more broadly, leads to more concerns with hardware spending and ultimately a lower level of spending. So any 2Q pull forward could mean an even weaker second half of the year.Michael Zezas: Alright, Erik, thanks for taking the time to talk.Erik Woodring: Great. Thanks for speaking, Mike.Michael Zezas: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

17 Apr 20258min

The ever-evolving nature of the U.S. administration’s trade policy has triggered market uncertainty, impacting corporate and consumer confidence. But our Head of Corporate Credit Research Andrew Sheets explains why he believes this volatility could present a silver lining for credit investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Today I’m going to talk about how high uncertainty can be a risk for credit, and also an opportunity.It's Wednesday, April 16th at 9am in New York.Markets year-to-date have been dominated by questions of U.S. trade policy. At the center of this debate is a puzzle: What, exactly, the goal of this policy is?Currently, there are two competing theories of what the U.S. administration is trying to achieve. In one, aggressive tariffs are a negotiating tactic, an aggressive opening move designed to be bargained down into something much, much lower for an ultimate deal.And in the other interpretation, aggressive tariffs are a new industrial policy. Large tariffs, for a long period of time, are necessary to encourage manufacturers to relocate operations to the U.S. over the long term.Both of these theories are plausible. Both have been discussed by senior U.S. administration officials. But they are also mutually exclusive. They can’t both prevail.The uncertainty of which of these camps wins out is not new. Market strength back in early February could be linked to optimism that tariffs would be more of that first negotiating tool. Weakness in March and April was linked to signs that they would be more permanent. And the more recent bounce, including an almost 10 percent one-day rally last week, were linked to hopes that the pendulum was once again swinging back.This back and forth is uncertain. But in some sense, it gives investors a rubric: signs of more aggressive tariffs would be more challenging to the market, signs of more flexibility more positive. But is it that simple? Do signs of a more lasting tariff pause solve the story?The important question, we think, is whether all of that back and forth has done lasting damage to corporate and consumer confidence. Even if all of the tariffs were paused, would companies and consumers believe it? Would they be willing to invest and spend over the coming quarters at similar levels to before – given all of the recent volatility?This question is more than hypothetical. Across a wide range of surveys, the so-called soft data, U.S. corporate and consumer confidence has plunged. Merger activity has slowed sharply. We expect intense investor focus on these measures of confidence over the coming months.For credit, lower confidence is a doubled edged sword. To some extent, it is good, keeping companies more conservative and better able to service their debt. But if it weakens the overall economy – and historically, weaker confidence surveys like we’ve seen recently have indicated much weaker growth in the future; that’s a risk. With overall spread levels about average, we do not see valuations as clearly attractive enough to be outright positive, yet.But maybe there is one silver lining. Long term Investment grade corporate debt now yields over 6 percent. As corporate confidence has soured, and these yields have risen, we think companies will find it unattractive to lock in high costs for long-term borrowing. Fewer bonds for sale, and attractive all-in yields for investors could help this part of the market outperform, in our view.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

16 Apr 20253min