Is American Market Dominance Over?

Is American Market Dominance Over?

In the first of a two-part episode, Lisa Shalett, our Wealth Management CIO, and Andrew Sheets, our Head of Corporate Credit Research, discuss whether the era of “American Exceptionalism” is ending and how investors should prepare for a global market rebalancing.

Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.


----- Transcript -----


Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley.

Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

Andrew Sheets: Today, the first of two episodes tackling a fascinating and complex question. Is American market dominance ending? And what would that mean for investors?

It's Wednesday, July 30th at 4pm in London.

Lisa Shalett: And it's 11am here in New York.

Andrew Sheets: Lisa, it's so great to talk to you again, and especially what we're going to talk about over these two episodes. , a theme that's been coming up regularly on this podcast is this idea of American exceptionalism. This multi-year, almost multi-decade outperformance of the U.S. economy, of the U.S. currency, of the U.S. stock market.

And so, it's great to have you on the show, given that you've recently published on this topic in a special report, very topically titled American Exceptionalism: Navigating the Great Rebalancing.

So, what are the key pillars behind this idea and why do you think it's so important?

Lisa Shalett: Yeah. So, I think that that when you think about the thesis of American exceptionalism and the duration of time that the thesis has endured. I think a lot of investors have come to the conclusion that many of the underpinnings of America's performance are just absolutely inherent and foundational, right?

They'll point to America as a, economy of innovation. A market with regulation and capital markets breadth and depth and liquidity a market guided by, , laws and regulation, and a market where, heretofore, we've had relatively decent population growth.

All things that tend to lead to growth. But our analysis of the past 15 years, while acknowledging all of those foundational pillars say, ‘Wait a minute, let's separate the wheat from the chaff.’ Because this past 15 years has been, extraordinary and different. And it's been extraordinary and different on at least three dimensions.

One, the degree to which we've had monetary accommodation and an extraordinary responsiveness of the Fed to any crisis. Secondly, extraordinary fiscal policy and fiscal stimulus. And third, the peak of globalization a trend that in our humble opinion, American companies were among the biggest beneficiaries of exploiting, despite all of the political rhetoric that considers the costs of that globalization.

Andrew Sheets: So, Lisa, let me go back then to the title of your report, which is the Great Rebalancing or navigating the Great Rebalancing. So, what is that rebalancing? What do you think kind of might be in store going forward?

Lisa Shalett: The profound out performance, as you noted, Andrew, of both the U.S. dollar and American stock markets have left the world, , at an extraordinarily overweight position to the dollar and to American assets.

And that's against a backdrop where we're a fraction of the population. We're 25 percent of global GDP, and even with all of our great companies, we're still only 33 percent of the profit pool. So, we were at a place where not only was everyone overweight, but the relative valuation premia of American equity assets versus equities outside or rest of world was literally a 50 percent premium.

And that really had us asking the question, is that really sustainable? Those kind of valuation premiums – at a point when all of these pillars, fiscal stimulus, monetary stimulus, globalization, are at these profound inflection points.

Andrew Sheets: You mentioned monetary and fiscal policy a bit as being key to supercharging U.S. markets. Where do you think these factors are going to move in the future, and how do you think that affects this rebalancing idea?

Lisa Shalett: Look, I mean, I think we went through a period of time where on a relative basis, relative growth, relative rate spreads, right? The, the dispersion between what you could earn in U.S. assets and what you could earn in other places, and the hedging ratio in those currency markets made owning U.S. assets, just incredibly attractive on a relative basis.

As the U.S. now kind of hits this point of inflection when the rest of the world is starting to say, okay, in an America first and an America only policy world, what am I going to do?

And I think the responses are that for many other countries, they are going to invest aggressively in defense, in infrastructure, in technology, to respond to de-globalization, if you will.

And I think for many of those economies, it's going to help equalize not only growth rates between the U.S. and the rest of the world, but it's going to help equalize rate differentials. Particularly on the longer end of the curves, where everyone is going to spending money.

Andrew Sheets: That's actually a great segue into this idea of globalization, which again was a major tailwind for U.S. corporations and a pillar of this American outperformance over a number of years.

It does seem like that landscape has really changed over the last couple of decades, and yet going forward, it looks like it's going to change again. So, with rising deglobalization with higher tariffs, what do you think that's going to mean to U.S. corporate margins and global supply chains?

Lisa Shalett: Maybe I am a product of my training and economics, but I have always been a believer in comparative advantage and what globalization allowed. True free trade and globalization of supply chains allowed was for countries to exploit what they were best at – whether it was the lowest cost labor, the lowest cost of natural resources, the lowest cost inputs. And America was aggressive at pursuing those things, at outsourcing what they could to grow profit margins. And that had lots of implications.

And we weren't holding manufacturing assets or logistical assets or transportation assets necessarily on our balance sheets. And that dimension of this asset light and optimized supply chains is something in a world of tariffs, in a world of deglobalization, in a world of create manufacturing jobs onshore, where that gets reversed a bit. And there's going to be a financial cost to that.

Andrew Sheets: It's probably fair to say that the way that a lot of people experience American exceptionalism is in their retirement account.

In your view, is this outperformance sustainable or do you think, as you mentioned, changing fiscal dynamics, changing trade dynamics, that we're also going to see a leadership rotation here?

Lisa Shalett: Our thesis has been, this isn't the end of American exceptionalism, point blank, black and white. What we've said, however, is that we think that the order of magnitude of that outperformance is what's going to close, , when you start burdening, , your growth rate with headwinds, right?

And so, again, not to say that that American assets can't continue to, to be major contributors in portfolios and may even, , outperform by a bit. But I don't think that they're going to be outperforming by the magnitude, kind of the 450 - 550 basis points per year compound for 15 years that we've seen.

Andrew Sheets: The American exceptionalism that we've seen really since 2009, it's also been accompanied by really unprecedented market imbalances. But another dimension of these imbalances is social and economic inequality, which is creating structural, and policy, and political challenges.

Do these imbalances matter for markets? And do you think these imbalances affect economic stability and overall market performance?

Lisa Shalett: People need to understand what has happened over this period. When we applied this degree of monetary and fiscal, stimulus, what we essentially did was massively deleverage the private sector of America, right?

And as a result, when you do that, you enable and create the backdrop for the portions of your economy who are less interest rate sensitive to continue to, kind of, invest free money. And so what we have seen is that this gap between the haves and the have nots, those who are most interest rate sensitive and those who are least interest rate sensitive – that chasm is really blown out.

But also I would suggest an economic policy conundrum. We can all have points of view about the central bank, and we can all have points of view about the current chair. But the reality is if you look at these dispersions in the United States, you have to ask yourself the question, is there one central bank policy that's right for the U.S. economy?

I could make the argument that the U.S. GDP, right, is growing at 5.5 percent nominal right now. And the policy rate's 4.3 percent. Is that tight?

Andrew Sheets: Hmm.

Lisa Shalett: I don't know, right? The economists will tell me it's really tight, Lisa – [be]cause neutral is 3. But I don't know. I don't see the constraints. If I drill down and do I say, can I see constraints among small businesses?

Yeah. I think they're suffering. Do I see constraints in some of the portfolio companies of private equity? Are they suffering? Yeah. Do they need lower rates? Yeah. Do the lower two-thirds of American consumers need lower rates to access the housing market. Yeah.

But is it hurting the aggregate U.S. economy? Mm, I don't know; hard to convince me.

Andrew Sheets: Well, Lisa, that seems like a great place to actually end it for now and Thanks as always, for taking the time to talk.

Lisa Shalett: My pleasure, Andrew.

Andrew Sheets: And that brings us to the end of part one of this two-part look at American exceptionalism and the impact on equity and fixed income markets. Tomorrow we'll dig into the fixed income side of that debate.

Thank you as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen, and also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

*****

Lisa Shalett is a member of Morgan Stanley’s Wealth Management Division and is not a member of Morgan Stanley’s Research Department. Unless otherwise indicated, her views are her own and may differ from the views of the Morgan Stanley Research Department and from the views of others within Morgan Stanley.

Episoder(1543)

Seth Carpenter: Are Higher Rates Permanent?

Seth Carpenter: Are Higher Rates Permanent?

The recent rise in long term yields and economic tightening raises the question of how restrictive U.S. financial conditions have become.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Chief Global Economist, and along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives. Today, I'll be talking about the tightening of financial conditions. It's Monday, October 16th at 10 a.m. in New York. The net selloff in U.S. interest rates since May prompts the question of how restrictive financial conditions have become in the United States. Federal Reserve leaders highlighted the tightening in conditions in recent speeches, with emphasis on the recent rise in long term yields. One lens on this issue is the Financial Conditions index, and the Morgan Stanley version suggests that the recent rate move is the equivalent of just under two Fed hikes since the September FOMC meeting. Taken at face value, it sustained these tight conditions will restrain economic activity over time. Put differently, the market is doing additional tightening for the Fed. Before the rally in rates this week, the Morgan Stanley Financial Conditions Index reached the highest level since November 2022, and the move was the equivalent of more than 2 25 basis point hikes since the September FOMC meeting. Of course, the mapping to Fed funds equivalence is just one approximation among many. When Fed staff tried to map QE effects into Fed funds equivalence, they would have assessed the 50 basis point move in term premiums we have seen as a 200 basis point move in hiking the Fed funds rate. What does the FCI mean for inflation and growth? Well, Morgan Stanley forecasts have been fairly accurate on the inflation trend throughout 2023, although we have underestimated growth. We think that core PCE inflation gets below 3% by the first quarter of next year. For growth, the key question is whether the sell off is exogenous, that is if it's unrelated to the fundamentals of the economy and whether it persists. A persistent exogenous rise in rates should slow the economy, and over time the Fed would need to adjust the path of policy lower in order to offset that drag. The more drag that comes from markets, the less drag the Fed would do with policy. But if instead the sell off is endogenous, that is, the higher rates reflect just a fundamentally stronger economy, either because of more fiscal policy or higher productivity growth or both, the growth need not slow at all and rates can stay high forever. Well, what does the FCI mean then, for the Fed? Bond yields have contributed about 2/3's of the rise in the Financial conditions index, and the Fed seems to have taken note. In a panel moderated by our own Ellen Zentner last Monday, Vice Chair Jefferson was a key voice suggesting that the rate move could forestall another hike. The Fed, however, must confront the same two questions. Is the tightening endogenous or exogenous, and will it persist? If rates continued their rally over the next several weeks and offset the tightening, then there's no material effect. But the second question of exogeneity is also critical. If the selloff was exogenous, then the tightening should hurt growth and the Fed will have to adjust policy in response. If instead the higher rates are an endogenous reaction, then there may be more underlying strength in the economy than our models imply and the shift higher in rates could be permanent. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

16 Okt 20233min

Vishy Tirupattur: Treasury Yields Move Higher

Vishy Tirupattur: Treasury Yields Move Higher

On the heels of a midsummer spike, long-end treasury yields have picked up further momentum, which has created complex implications for the Fed, the corporate credit market, and emerging market bonds.----- 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 back of moves higher in Treasury yields. It's Friday, October 13th at 3 pm. in New York. The midsummer move higher in long-end treasury yields picked up further momentum in September, spiking to levels last seen over 15 years ago. Market narratives explaining these moves have revolved largely around upside surprises to growth and concerns about large federal fiscal deficits. The September employment report was unequivocally strong, perhaps too strong for policymakers to relax their tightening bias. While inflation has been decelerating faster than the Fed forecasts, continued strength in job gains could fuel doubts about the sustainability of the pace of deceleration. On the other hand, the rise in long-end yields have led financial conditions tighter. By our economists’ measure, since the September FOMC meeting, financial conditions have tightened to the equivalent of about two 25 basis point hikes, bringing the degree of tightness more in line with the Fed's intent. Thus, our economists see no need for further hikes in the Fed's policy rates this year. In effect, the move higher in Treasury yields is doing the job of additional hikes. It's worth highlighting that there has been a subtle shift in the tone of Fed speak in the past two weeks, indicating that the appetite for additional hike this year is waning. Given the moves in Treasury yields, we felt the need to reassess our Treasury yield forecasts and move them higher relative to our previous forecasts. Our interest rate strategists now expect ten-year Treasury yields to end year 2023 at 4.3% and mid-2024 at 3.9%. The effects of higher treasury yields are different in the corporate credit market. Unlike the Treasury market, the concentration of yield buyers in investment grade corporate credit bonds is much higher, especially at the back end of the curve. These yield buyers offer an important counterbalance. In fact, for longer duration buyers, there are not that many competing alternatives to IG corporate credit. While spreads look low relative to Treasury yields, growth optimism is likely to keep demand skewed towards credit over government bonds. Insurance companies and pension funds may have room to add corporate credit exposure, although stability in yields is certainly important. Higher treasury yields have implications to other markets as well, notably on emerging market bonds. Considering the move in U.S. Treasury yields, we think EM credit bonds cannot absorb any further move higher. In a higher for longer scenario, we expect EM high yield bonds to struggle. Therefore, we no longer think that EM high-yield credit will outperform EM investment grade credit. 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.

13 Okt 20232min

Chetan Ahya: What Would Trigger Rate Hikes in Asia?

Chetan Ahya: What Would Trigger Rate Hikes in Asia?

Although inflation is largely under control in Asian economies, central banks could be pushed to respond if high U.S. yields meet rising oil prices.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today, I'll discuss how higher U.S. rates environment could affect Asia. It's Thursday, October 12th, at 9 a.m. in Hong Kong. Real rates in the U.S. have risen rapidly since mid-May and remain at elevated levels. Against this backdrop, investors are asking if Asian central banks will have to restart their rate hiking cycles. We think Asia should be less affected this time around, mainly because of the difference in inflation dynamics. As we've highlighted before on this show when compared to the U.S., Asia's inflation challenge is not as intense. In fact, for 80% of the economies in the region inflation is already back in the respective central bank's comfort zone. Real policy rates are already high and so against this backdrop, we believe central banks will not have to hike. However, we do think that the central banks will delay cutting rates. Previously, we had expected that the first rate cut in the region could come in the fourth quarter of 2023, but now we believe that cuts will be delayed and only start in first quarter of 2024. So what can trigger renewed rate hikes across Asia? We think that central banks will respond if high U.S. yields are accompanied by Brent crude oil prices rising in a sustained manner, above $110 per barrels versus $85 today. Under this scenario, the region's macro stability indicators of inflation and current account balances could become stretched and currencies may face further weakness. In thinking about which central banks might face more pressures to hike, we consider three key factors, economies with lower yields at the starting point, economies running a current account deficit or just about a mile surplus and the oil trade deficit. This suggests that economies like India, Korea, Philippines and Thailand, may be more exposed and so this means that the central banks in these countries may be prompted to begin raising rates. In contrast, the economies of China and Taiwan are less exposed, and so their central banks would be able to stay put. Thanks for listening, and 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 Okt 20232min

Michael Zezas: Signals from the Speaker of the House Vacancy

Michael Zezas: Signals from the Speaker of the House Vacancy

With Congress still without a Speaker of the House, investors should keep an eye on the impact that another potential government shutdown would have on the markets.----- Transcript -----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 the impact of Congress on financial markets. It's Wednesday, October 11th, at 10 a.m. in New York. As of this recording, the U.S. House of Representatives still does not have a speaker following Representative McCarthy's ouster a little over a week ago. Republicans are scheduled to meet today to attempt to nominate the speaker, but until one is chosen, it's unclear that Congress can do any other business. But does that actually matter for investors? Here's two signals from these events that we think are important. First, it signals that Congress is unlikely to deliver any substantial legislation between now and the 2024 election outside of funding bills. Republicans' difficulty choosing a speaker reflects their lack of consensus on many policy issues, including regulation, social spending and more. That further impedes the government's ability to legislate, which was already hampered by different parties controlling the White House and Congress. So for investors who have credited the rise in bond yields and stock prices to expanded fiscal support from the federal government in recent years, you shouldn't expect there to be more on the horizon. The exception to this could be an economic crisis that prompts a fiscal response. But for investors, that means you'd likely see bonds rally and stocks sell off before fiscal support would again become a stock market positive. The second signal, which also cuts against the narrative of government policy support for markets, is that a government shutdown is still a distinct possibility. Congress recently avoided the government shutdown at the beginning of the month by passing a temporary extension of funding into November. But that move only delayed the resolution of key policy disagreements within the House Republican caucus that nearly led to the shutdown in the first place. With the clock ticking toward another shutdown deadline, Republicans are spending precious time selecting a new speaker, and it's not clear they're any closer to resolving their disagreements on key issues such as funding aid to Ukraine. Without that resolution, the risk remains that the House could fail to consider funding bills in time to avoid another shutdown. Now, to put it in context, our economists expect that downward growth pressures from a shutdown event should be modest, and so there are more meaningful factors to consider for markets out there, but certainly this condition doesn't help investors' confidence in the U.S. growth trajectory. And generally speaking, a Congress stunted in its ability to legislate has the potential to become a bigger challenge, particularly if geopolitical events create greater global growth risks. So bottom line, this situation is worth keeping tabs on, but isn't yet something we think should principally drive investors decision making. 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.

11 Okt 20233min

Keith Weiss: How Generative AI Could Affect Jobs

Keith Weiss: How Generative AI Could Affect Jobs

As companies integrate generative AI into enterprise software, a wide variety of jobs that depend on requesting or distributing data could be automated.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Keith Weiss, Head of Morgan Stanley's U.S. Software Team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss the significant potential impact from generative A.I on enterprises. It's Tuesday, October 10th, at 10 a.m. in New York. You may remember the generative A.I powered chat app that reached 1 million users in only five days after its launch late last year. While much of the early discussion on the use of generative A.I focused on the consumer opportunity, we see perhaps an even bigger opportunity in enterprise software. The advantages from traditional A.I to generative A.I are rapidly broadening the scope of the types of work and business processes that enterprise software can automate, and this could ultimately have an impact on industries across the entire economy. Of course, one of the biggest questions everyone seems to have is how will generative A.I impact jobs? We forecast 25% of labor could be impacted by generative A.I capabilities available today, likely rising to 44% of labor in three years. Further, by looking at the wages associated with those jobs, our analysis suggests generative and A.I technologies can impact the $2.1 trillion of labor costs attached to those jobs today, expanding to $4.1 trillion in three years in the U.S. alone. This drives an approximately $150 billion revenue opportunity for software companies in our view. An important caveat here, we believe it's too early to make any definitive claims on the number of jobs that will be replaced by generative A.I. So we used the term impact to denote the potential for either an augmentation or further automation of these jobs on a go forward basis. So what are the jobs we think are most likely to be impacted? Based on the current capabilities of generative A.I technologies like large language models, we believe the common characteristics are skills amongst the jobs most impacted are the need to retrieve or distribute information. For example, billing clerks, proofreaders, switchboard operators, general office workers and brokerage clerks. On the other side of the equation, jobs that are least impacted today are those that require some aspect of physical labor, including ophthalmologists, extraction workers, choreographers, firefighters and manufactured building and mobile home installers. Over the next three years, as this more generalized A.I. technology focuses in on more specific use cases, we believe the impact of generative A.I will shift into more specialized jobs, such as general and operations managers, as well as registered nurses, software developers, accountants and auditors, and customer service reps. Of these, the General and Operations Manager jobs could experience the highest potential cumulative wage impact. In fact, our analysis suggests a $83 billion impact amongst general and operations managers today. The magnitude of the enterprise impact marks only one side of the equation, as the timing of the realizable opportunity becomes increasingly important for investors to navigate this evolving technology cycle. To be clear, the rapid adoption of these consumer technologies are not going to be indicative of the pace of adoption we're likely to see amongst the enterprise. There are several notable frictions to enterprise adoption related to items such as finding a good return on investment, enabling good data protection, the skill sets necessary to run and operate these new technologies and legal and regulatory considerations, all which necessitate significantly longer adoption cycles for the enterprise. For this reason, we think generative A.I remains in the early stages of the opportunity. Thank you 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.

10 Okt 20233min

Michelle Weaver: The Priorities of the U.S. Consumer

Michelle Weaver: The Priorities of the U.S. Consumer

While U.S. consumer sentiment is on the decline, there are some categories that have remained stable as purse strings tighten.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver from the Morgan Stanley U.S. Equity Strategy Team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll give you an update on the U.S. consumer. It's Monday, October 9th at 10 a.m. in New York. As we get into the fall season and close out the third quarter of this year, investors are paying attention to the state of the U.S. consumer. Our recent survey work reveals that inflation continues to be a primary concern for consumers and that the U.S. political environment is the second most significant concern. Furthermore, consumers continue to worry about their payment obligations, and 30% of people we surveyed expressed concern over their potential inability to repay debts. Low income consumers are generally more worried about their inability to pay rent, while upper income consumers are concerned about their investments, U.S. politics and geopolitics. Overall, consumer confidence in the U.S. economy and household finances worsened modestly in September. More than half of U.S. consumers are expecting the economy to get worse in the next six months, while less than a quarter of consumers are expecting the economy to get better. This worsening sentiment is also consistent across different income cohorts. Additionally, savings rates continue to trend lower versus earlier this year. Consumers report having an average savings reserve of 4.2 months, the average over the past few months has been trending lower compared to earlier in the year. Of course, savings reserves vary significantly by income though, with upper income consumers having on average around 6 to 7 months worth of expenses in savings compared to about 3 months for low income cohorts. Positively fewer consumers reported missing or being late on a loan or bill payment, with 34% missing a payment last month versus 38% in August. Low income consumers are more likely to have missed or been late on payments versus middle and high income consumers. Consumer spending intentions across income cohorts for the next month are similar to last month, with 31% of consumers expecting to spend more next month and 19% expecting to spend less. Consumers continue to prioritize essential categories like groceries and household items, but plan to spend less on more discretionary products like electronics, leisure and entertainment, small appliances and food away from home. Interesting to note, cell phone bills continue to be a clear priority for consumers. Travel intentions have also remained relatively stable. Over half of consumers are planning to travel over the next six months, mostly to visit friends and family, which is slightly up from last year. Not surprisingly, travel spending is higher for high income consumers than for low and middle income ones. However, we have seen plans for international travel start to decline. Thank you 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.

9 Okt 20232min

U.S Equities: Credit Continues to Outperform

U.S Equities: Credit Continues to Outperform

As bond yields continue to rise, credit has been more of a passenger than the driver of recent market volatility.-----Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts in the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's Head of Corporate Credit Research. Serena Tang: And I'm Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley's Chief Global Cross-Asset Strategist. Andrew Sheets: And on the special episode of the podcast, we'll discuss Morgan Stanley's updated cross-asset and corporate credit views. It's Friday, October 6th at 3 p.m. in London. Serena Tang: And 10 a.m. in New York. Andrew Sheets: Before we get into our discussion, let me introduce Serena Tang as Morgan Stanley's new Global Cross-Asset Strategist. Serena has been working with me for the last 15 years and together we initiated our cross-asset effort nearly a decade ago. Serena was responsible for building the team's investment framework, specializing in multi asset allocation, portfolio optimization, and long run capital market assumptions. So I can confidently say that Morgan Stanley's cross-asset effort is in very capable hands. As for me, I'm now Morgan Stanley's Head of Corporate Credit Research, but I'll continue to host my colleagues as we look forward to bringing you key debates from across asset classes and regions. So, Serena, welcome and let's jump right into what's going on in markets. Over the last several weeks, as everybody in the U.S. has returned from summer, the debate among Morgan Stanley's economists and strategists is centered on two main issues, the outperformance of the U.S. economy and the underperformance of China's economy, as well as the spike of government bond yields, especially at the longer end of the curve. So where has this left our views across asset classes? Serena Tang: Yeah, yields and real yields have indeed moved a lot higher in a very short amount of time, you know, on that narrative that rates will stay higher for longer. And I would say that, you know, while the market has been going against our current call for government bond yields to fall over the next 6 to 9 months or so, we’re steadfast on our preference for high quality fixed income over risk assets like global equities, like high yield corporate bonds. And the reason really comes down to how higher real yields mean the discount rate for equities is also higher, leading to lower stock prices. And we've kind of seen this over the past few weeks or so. I think this is especially true in today's environment where the rise in yields and the rise in real yields isn't really driven by a rise in growth expectations, which you know traditionally have been great for equities thinking about future growth. But rather today's move in yields is really much a function of what the markets think the Fed would do over the coming few months. And all this largely explains the nearly 9% selloff we've seen in global equities since the start of August. But Andrew, you know, such dynamics must also be very similar in the credit world. In your view, how do rising government bond yields affect your outlook for global credit? Andrew Sheets: So I think credit finds itself in a pretty interesting place as bond yields have risen. You know, I would safely say that I think credit as a passenger in recent market volatility, it's not the driver. And, you know, if I think very simply about why bond yields have been selling off and there are a lot of different theories of why that's been happening, maybe a simple explanation would be that bond yields offer pretty poor so-called carry, a government bond, a ten year government bond yields less than just holding cash. They offer poor momentum, they're moving in the wrong direction and they have difficult technicals, i.e., there's a lot of supply of government bonds forecast over the coming years. And across a lot of those metrics, I do think credit looks somewhat better. Credit yields are higher, that carry is better. Credit compensates you more for taking on a longer maturity corporate bond, which is the opposite of what you see in the government bond market. And as yields have risen, companies have looked at those higher yields and done, I think, a very understandable thing, they are borrowing less money because it's more expensive to borrow that money. So we've seen less supply of corporate bonds into the market, which means there's less supply that needs to be absorbed and bought by investors. So credit can't ignore what's going on in this environment and we're broadly forecasting this to be worse for weaker companies, as the effect of potentially slower growth and higher rates we think will weigh more heavily on the more levered type of capital structure. But overall, I think within this kind of challenging environment, I think credit has been an outperformer and I think it can remain an outperformer given it has some advantages on these key metrics. Serena Tang: So you touched on lower quality companies. One of the very interesting forecasts from your team is that we still think default rates can go higher over the next 12 months. Now, how do I square this with everything that you just said, but also our U.S. economics team’s continued forecast for a soft landing? Andrew Sheets: It's a great question. I'd say our default forecast, which is that US default rates rise to a little bit under 5% over the next 12 months, is quite divisive. I’d say there's a group of investors who say, well, it doesn't make a lot of sense that default rates would rise given that our base case does call for a soft landing of the US economy, no recession. And another group that says, well, that seems like too low of a default rate because interest rates have just risen at one of the fastest paces we've seen in 150 years. Of course, that's going to put stress on weaker companies. And I guess we see the markets splitting the difference a little bit between that. I think the fact that you are seeing a clearly outperforming US economy, I think that does really reduce the risk of an above average default rate. It would be very unusual to see an above average default rate with anything like what we're forecasting in our base case economically. And then at the same time, you do have, thanks to the low rates we're coming from, an unusually large share of borrowers who borrowed a lot relative to the amount of income that they generate because they could do that at lower interest rates, and now that's going to be a struggle at higher interest rates. So I think the combination of those two factors gets you something that's in the middle. I think you do have a more robust than expected US economy, but you do have this tail of more heavily indebted issuers that is just, I think, going to struggle with the math of how do you pay for that debt when the interest rate is effectively doubled from where it was just 18 months ago? Serena Tang: And you described just now our credit being in the middle, so to speak. And, you know, being in the middle is much better than what we're projecting for equity returns, and hence one of the reasons we like high quality credit and we like high quality bonds. But then my question to you is, what might the market be missing right now? But also importantly, what do you think we might be wrong? Andrew Sheets: So I think there are a couple of important things to follow. I think there has been over the last several years an advent of alternative forms of capital, some of this is kind of rolled up into the general classification of private credit. But, you know, there have been a lot of new entrants, new investors who are willing to lend to companies under nontraditional terms. And I think it's a big open question around, does that presence of additional investors actually make defaults a lot less likely because there's a new outlet for companies that need to raise funds from this new investor pool, or does that pool not have that effect? And if anything, maybe it is a source of some additional risk. It's a group of lending that's hard to observe by design, by its nature. I think another important thing to watch will be what do companies do? Part of our thinking on the research side is that companies will view current yields as expensive and they will react like any actor would act. When it's more expensive to borrow, they will borrow less. They will try to improve their balance sheet and maybe in the process they'll buy back less stock or do other types of things. That might be wrong. You know, we might see a different reaction from companies. Companies might view that debt cost as different. Maybe they view it as more reasonable than we think they will. So at the moment, we're thinking that companies will view that debt is expensive and respond accordingly and do more bondholder friendly things, so to speak. But we'll have to see. And we could be wrong about how corporate treasurers and management are thinking about those trade offs. Andrew Sheets: Serena, thanks for taking the time to talk. Serena Tang: As always, great. Speaking of you, Andrew. Andrew Sheets: And thanks 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.

6 Okt 20238min

Todd Castagno: Rising Growth in Convertibles Bonds

Todd Castagno: Rising Growth in Convertibles Bonds

Here’s why convertible bonds, an often overlooked asset class, are becoming more attractive as an alternative to common stock.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Todd Castagno, head of Morgan Stanley's Global Valuation Accounting Research Team. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be discussing the increasing attractiveness of the convertible debt market. It's Thursday, October 5th at 10 a.m. in New York. Rising interest rates have increased borrowing costs for everybody, and that includes companies looking to raise or refinance debt. And that generates a renewed appetite for an oft overlooked asset class called convertible bonds. But what are convertible bonds? To start, convertible bonds are what we call a hybrid instrument, combining the features of a traditional corporate debt and common equity. Similar to corporate bonds, convertibles offer guaranteed income via interest of the initial investment. The reason they are called "convertible" is because they offer investors the option to convert that bond to common stock when a company's share price hits a certain threshold. These hybrid features provide investors with downside protection and upside equity appreciation. There are many reasons why companies choose to issue convertible debt. First, they offer a strategic financial flexibility for high growth in early stage companies, a quick time to market execution time. Second, convertible debt provides an alternative path for companies that would find it difficult to access straight debt in the market. Third, they offer a way to raise equity without issuing more stock directly through secondary offerings. And this is a big plus for corporates because investors often perceive a secondary offering as a negative signal. And finally, a lower cash coupon and lower interest expense is very attractive in a high-rate environment. Why is that? Convertible bonds have lost market share from traditional corporate debt over the last 15 years. The convertibles market size has remained largely unchanged, while the traditional corporate debt market in the U.S. has roughly doubled. Convertibles are relatively less attractive at lower interest rates and accommodating capital markets for traditional alternatives. As it stands, 2023 is on track to double last year's issuance, as likely to be the highest post global financial crisis issuance outside of COVID. Important to note, the nature of issuance this year is different from recent history. In the last decade or so, issuance has been led by smaller market cap and growth companies, who don't have established debt markets or ratings and thus don't have easy access to straight debt capital. However, this year, 65% of issuers have had a credit rating and thus have had easy access to the straight debt market. They're coming to the convertibles market, not as a necessity, but are instead actively choosing to issue converts because of the favorable economics, through interest expense savings, and a last wrinkle, new favorable accounting. Accounting rules recently changed that reduce complexity for both issuers and investors. While accounting typically does not drive economics, on the margin, the recent change improves transparency and reduces cost to issue. Utilities have been especially large convertible issuers this year in the market. 75% of convertible offerings in 2023 year-to-date have been refinancing, which are likely to be one of the areas primed for growth in the capital markets. Looking ahead, we believe the convertibles market is poised for growth. We will likely see more convertible issuances, given a higher interest rate environment, tighter capital markets and a wall maturities, that is coming due in the next 2 to 3 years. Convertibles are a particularly suitable instrument in this context as they offer defensive income enhanced alternative to investing in the underlying common stock. 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.

5 Okt 20233min

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