Economics Roundtable: Investors Eye Central Banks

World oil demand is slowing, non-OPEC supply remains strong and OPEC is likely to follow through on planned cuts. Here’s how investors can understand this precarious balance.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Martjin Rats, Morgan Stanley's Global Commodity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss the 2024 Global Outlook for oil. It's Wednesday, the 10th of January at 2 p.m. in London. Around six months ago, oil market forecasters widely forecasted a tight second half for 2023 with considerable inventory draws. This expectation was partially driven by two factors. One, OPEC cuts, and in particular the additional voluntary cut of about 1 million barrels a day announced by Saudi Arabia back in June that took the country's production to 9 million barrels a day, about 10% lower than the average of the first half of 2023. The second factor was a positive view on demand, which had mostly surprised to the upside in the first half of 2023. The market indeed tightened in the third quarter and inventories drew sharply at the time. As a result, Dated Brant rallied and briefly reached $98 a barrel in late September. However, this was not to last in the fourth quarter. Demand disappointed, growth and non-OPEC supply remained relentless and inventories built again. Needless to say, these trends have been reflected in prices. Not only did spot prices decline, Dated Brant fell to about $74 a barrel in mid-December, but a number of other indicators, such as calendar spreads for example, signaled a broad weakening of the oil complex. Looking ahead, we expect a relatively precarious balance in 2024. Demand growth is set to slow as the post-Covid recovery tailwinds have largely run out of steam by now. Despite low investment in production capacity in recent years, the growth in non-OPEC supply is set to remain strong in 2024 and probably also in 2025, enough to meet all global demand growth. Naturally, this limits the room in the oil market for OPEC oil. When OPEC cuts production in response, as it has recently been doing, this puts downward pressure on its market share and upward pressure on its spare capacity. History warns of such periods. On several occasions when non-OPEC supply growth outpaced global demand, eventually, a period of lower prices was needed to reverse that balance. However, we argue that is not quite what lies ahead for 2024. OPEC cohesion has been robust in recent years and will likely continue this year. We expect the production cuts agreed to in late November 2023 to eventually be extended through all of 2024, and we don't exclude a further deepening of those cuts either. This would limit the pace of inventory builds in 2024, but probably not prevent them. In our base case projections, we still see inventories built modestly at a rate of about a few hundred thousand barrels a day this year, and our initial 2025 estimates also imply a modest oversupply next year. As a result, we see lower oil prices ahead, but again, not a large difference. We estimate Dated Brant will remain close to $80 a barrel in the first half of 2024, but may gradually decline towards the end of the year, trading in the low to mid $70s in 2025. That may also support our economists' call for inflation to moderate further this year. 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.

10 Jan 20243min

Companies that offer generative AI solutions saw their valuations rise in 2023. This year, investors should look at the companies adopting these solutions.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Ed Stanley, Morgan Stanley's Head of Thematic Research in Europe. And along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss our views on the broad impacts of AI across global markets. It's Tuesday, the 9th of January at 2 p.m. in London. AI has established itself as a critical theme of the last 12 months, but we are clearly in the early innings of its diffusion. More specifically, 2023 was very successful for AI players that we call the enablers, those first line of hardware and software companies that play into the generative AI debate. But after the first wave of excitement, how does that trend percolate through the rest of the market, and how much of the hype will translate to sustainable earnings uplift? What is the next move for this entire debate, which so captivated markets in 2023? Our team mapped out the next stage of the debate across all regions and industries, and came to three key conclusions. The first, looking back at 2023, the enablers did extraordinarily well, and that shouldn't come as a surprise to any of our regular listeners. Some of those companies saw triple digit returns last year, and we estimate that more than $6 trillion of market cap was added to those names globally. But that brings us to our second key conclusion. Namely, looking forward, we think that investors should now turn their attention to the adopters. Meaning companies that are leveraging the enablers software and hardware to better use their own data and monetize that for the AI world. Looking back last year, where the enablers returned more comfortably double digit and triple digit returns, the adopters only gained on average around 6%. Of course, we're only in the early innings of the AI revolution, and the market is still treating these adopters as a "show me" story. We think that 2024 is going to be transformative for this adopter group, and we expect to see a wave of product launches using large language models and generative AI, particularly in the second half of 2024. Our third key conclusion is around the rate of change. And what do we mean by this? Well, in 2023, the enabler stocks, where AI was moderately important to the investment debate, increased their total market cap by around 28%. But if AI increases in importance to the point where analysts deem it to be core to the thesis for that particular stock, we expect it can add another 40% to market cap of this group based on last year's performance. A final point worth noting is that investors should pay close attention to the give and take between enabler and adopter groups. As I mentioned, the adopters were relatively more muted in their performance last year than the enablers. However, we believe in 2024 we will see the virtuous cycle between these two groups come into greater focus for investors. Enablers, consensus upgrades and valuations will depend increasingly on the enterprise IT budgets being deployed by the adopters in 2024-25. The adopters, in turn, are in a race to build both revenue generating and productivity enhancing tools, which completes the virtuous circle by feeding the enablers revenue line. 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 a colleague today.

9 Jan 20243min

Investors worry that anti-obesity drugs could dent demand for medical procedures and devices. Here’s what they could be missing.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Patrick Wood, Morgan Stanley's MedTech analyst. And today, I'll be talking about the potential impact of anti-obesity medications on the MedTech industry. It's Monday, January 8th at 10 a.m. in New York. Anti-obesity drugs have made significant gains in popularity over the past year, and by and large, the market expects them to disrupt numerous MedTech markets as widespread adoption leads to population-level weight reduction and co-morbidity improvement. To a certain extent, we agree with the premise that obesity is linked to high health care spend and therefore anti-obesity drugs could represent a risk to device sales. Our research suggests that moderate obesity is associated with about $1,500 a year higher spend on healthcare per capita, with an even greater impact in severe obesity at about $3000 bucks a year. But we think it would be a mistake to assume reduced rates of obesity are intrinsically negative for medtech makers overall. In fact, we think anti-obesity drugs may ultimately prove to be a net positive for MedTech companies as the drugs increased life expectancy and increased demand for procedures or therapies that would not have been a good option for patients who are obese. In some cases, severe obesity can actually be contraindication for ortho or spine surgery, with many patients denied procedures until they shed a certain amount of weight for fear of complications, infection, and other issues. In this context, anti-obesity drugs could actually boost procedure volumes for certain patients. Another factor to consider, we believe the importance of life expectancy shifts as a result of potentially lower obesity rates cannot be ignored. In fact, our analysis suggests that obesity reduces life expectancy by about ten years in younger adults and five years in middle age adults. Think of it this way, from the standpoint of total healthcare consumption, one incremental year of life expectancy in old age could equate to as much as ten years of obesity in terms of overall healthcare spending. Adults 65 plus spend 2 to 3 times more per year on average, than adults 45 to 64, with a significant $10 to $25,000 step up in dollar terms. Furthermore, rates of sudden cardiac death increased dramatically in high body mass index patients, eliminating the possibility of medical intervention to address the underlying obesity issue or the associated co-morbidities. Given all this, we think anti-obesity drugs will ultimately prove to be a net benefit for cardiovascular device makers overall, even in certain categories where body mass index is correlated with higher procedure rates. In markets such as structural heart, where we're replacing things like heart valves, we believe the number of patients reaching old age, that is 70 plus, is most important in regards to volumes. Though rates of obesity are contributing factors as well, orthopedics is more of a mixed bag. The strongest evidence we've seen here is on lower BMI's leading to reduced procedure volumes though pertaining to osteoarthritis in the knees and degenerative disc disease in spine. But we think the argument that fewer people with obesity means fewer knee replacements or fewer incidences of spine disease is actually only half the picture. Clearly, age may be a factor here, and our sense is that hip volumes in particular are not dependent on high BMI's as much as on an aging population. To sum up, we believe that anti-obesity drugs won't dismantle core MedTech markets. There are more layers to the story here.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.

8 Jan 20243min

Should investors be concerned about a sluggish beginning to the year, or do they just need to be patient?----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about trends across the global investment landscape and how we put those ideas together. It's Friday, January 5th at 2 p.m. in London. 2023 saw a strong finish to a strong year, with stocks higher, spreads and yields lower and minimal market volatility. That strength in turn flowed from three converging hopeful factors. First, there was great economic data, which generally pointed to a US economy that was growing with inflation moderating. Second, we had helpful so-called technical factors such as depressed investor sentiment and the historical tendency for markets, especially credit markets, to do well in the last two months of the year. And third, we had reasonable valuations which had cheapened up quite a bit in October. Even more broadly, 2024 offered and still offers a lot to look forward to. Morgan Stanley's economists see global growth holding up as inflation in the U.S. and Europe come down. Major central banks from the US to Europe to Latin America should start cutting rates in 2024, while so-called quantitative tightening or the shrinking of central bank balance sheets should begin to wind down. And more specifically, for credit, we see 2024 as a year of strong demand for corporate bonds, against more modest levels of bond issuance, a positive balance of supply versus demand. So why, given all of these positives, has January gotten off to a rocky, sluggish start? It's perhaps because those good things don't necessarily arrive right away. Starting with the economic data, Morgan Stanley's economists forecast that the recent decline in inflation, so helpful to the rally over November and December, will see a bumpier path over the next several months, leaving the Fed to wait until June to make their first rate cut. The overall trend is still for lower, better inflation in 2024, but the near-term picture may be a little murky. Moving to those so-called technical factors, investor sentiment now is substantially higher than where it was in October, making it harder for events to positively surprise. And for credit, seasonally strong performance in November and December often gives way to somewhat weaker January and February returns. At least if we look at the performance over the last ten years. And finally, valuations where the cheapening in October was so helpful to the recent rally, have entered the year richer, across stocks, bonds and credit. None of these, in our view, are insurmountable problems, and the base case expectation from Morgan Stanley's economists means there is still a lot to look forward to in 2024. From better growth, to lower inflation, to easier monetary policy. The strong end of 2023 may just mean that some extra patience is required to get there. 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.

5 Jan 20243min

Many investors believe that the value of Japanese stocks will dip as the yen gets stronger. Here’s why we’re forecasting ~10% growth.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Daniel Blake from Morgan Stanley's Asia and Emerging Market Equity Strategy team. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll discuss one of the big debates in the market around Japanese equities in 2024. It's Thursday, January 4th at 10 a.m. in Singapore.. As we kick off the new year, one of the most debated investor questions is whether Japanese equities can again perform well if the Yen is now over weakening, but instead strengthens over 2024 as expectations of Fed rate cuts play out. The market is understandably concerned that if the Yen appreciates significantly, Japanese equities will underperform, given the impact on competitiveness and the effects translation of foreign earnings. As a result, global investors remain underweight on Japanese equities versus their benchmark weight, despite the notably improved sentiment on the underlying Japanese economy. So in contrast to these concerns, we believe that Japanese equities and the Yen can simultaneously rally in 2024, which will mean even stronger returns for unhedged dollar based investors than for the local index. Our currency strategists forecast modest further gains in the Yen, with a pick up to 140 against the US dollar by end 2024 versus 143 today. And despite this, we see corporate earnings growth still achieving 9% in 2024, underpinned by nominal GDP recovery and corporate reforms. So what is the reason for the break in the usually negative relationship between the yen and Japanese equities? We still see three drivers supporting the market. First, there’s the return of nominal GDP growth. The Japanese economy is finally exiting deflation that has been prevalent since the 1990s, and we believe a virtuous cycle of higher nominal growth in Japan has started thanks to joint efforts from the Bank of Japan and the corporate sector to move to a positive feedback loop between price hikes and wage growth, underpinned by a productive CapEx cycle. Our chief Japan economist, Takeshi Yamaguchi, forecasts nominal GDP growth for 2023 to have achieved 5%, but to remain above 3% growth in 2024, and a healthy 2 to 2.5 % for the foreseeable future. The second driver is corporate reforms, which have been the most crucial driver of underlying Japanese equities performance, and we expect the trend improvement of return on equity to continue. The sea change in corporate governance in Japan has led to major changes in buyback and dividend policies, which combined are almost quadruple the levels they were at ten years ago. And we're seeing a broadening trend of underlying business restructuring underpinned by more engagement from investors, both foreign and domestic. Finally, Japan has been a net beneficiary of investment inflows and CapEx orders in the transition to a more multipolar world. And with those flows, while equity valuations are cheap to history, in contrast to the US market, we expect them to be supported by further foreign inflows and domestic inflows that will be boosted by the launch of the new Nippon Individual Savings Account Program this month. Bottom line Japan equities remain our top pick globally. We see the TOPIX index moving further into a secular bull market with our December 2024 target for the index standing at 2,600, which implies 10% upside in Yen terms and more in US dollar terms from current levels. 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.

4 Jan 20243min

Tune in as our analysts take a look back at the major themes from 2023 and a look ahead to what investors should be eyeing in 2024.----- Transcript -----Paul Walsh: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's European Head of Research Product. And on this special episode of the podcast, we'll take a look back at 2023, which has been an extraordinary year. And we'll also touch on what 2024 could have in store for investors. It's Wednesday, January the 3rd at 2 p.m. in London. Paul Walsh: At the start of last year, we identified ten overarching long term themes that we believed would command investor focus throughout 2023 and beyond. And they ranged from macro developments like inflation, China's reopening and India's economic transformation to micro oriented themes such as Chat GPT, obesity, drugs and a number of others. Of course, the year did throw in a few curveballs, so I wanted to sit down with Ed Stanley to review some of the major themes that did hold investor interest last year, and that will likely continue to unfold in 2024. Paul Walsh: The whole energy and utilities space has been a topic of constant debate, be it at the energy transition or what's been going on around energy security. And then slightly more sort of sector specific with some of the micro dynamics, we've had the value of innovation in pharma at work around GLP-1s proving to be tremendously popular, as one would expect. And clearly the proliferation of artificial intelligence has really been, you know, the other non macro big theme this year, which has been tremendously prevalent, pretty much whichever corner you've looked in. If I take a little bit of a step back, Ed, and I think about the global themes that we've tried to own this year, namely multipolar world, decarbonization and tech diffusion, from a thematics perspective what themes worked and what played out in the way that you thought, and where have we seen things happening that were unexpected? Ed Stanley: I think the three big themes that you talk about remain as relevant, if not more relevant now than when we started the year. If you think about tech diffusion, A.I. has been the theme of the year. In multipolar world, we've had more conflict this year, and obviously that kind of sharpens people's minds to what stocks will and won't work in this kind of backdrop. And then if you think about the decarb theme as the final structural theme, higher interest rates are making investors really question whether the net zero transition is on track. So those three themes remain super relevant. We talked about the China reopening that sort of worked and then it was a bit of a disappointment mid and later on in the year. I'd say we got the micro probably better nailed down than the macro, but in a volatile year, I think we did a fairly good job of picking what to watch out for. Paul Walsh: What themes have people not been talking about that have been on your radar screen over recent years that you think could make a resurgence as we look forwards? Ed Stanley: There is a kind of joke in the tech world that we go in three year cycles, so we have A.I, then we have Web3, which is de facto crypto, and then we go back to AR/VR and we run in these cycles waiting for whatever breakthrough comes next. We've had crypto having another rally and we've had A.I this year, so we've had sort of all of them this year, but those are always rotating on the back burner. There are always things like unexpected news in quantum computing that could have overflow and disruption effects across the economy, which most investors are not thinking about until it becomes relevant. So I think there are a lot of things in the background which very easily could thrust themselves into the core of the debate.Paul Walsh: Well, let's talk a little bit about that and think about what we should be looking out for 2024. So how are you thinking about how the sort of themes and the landscape across the themes is going to develop into 2024 Ed, and what listeners should be thinking about? Ed Stanley: I think if you think on the top down three structural themes, there is very little to change our view that those remain pretty quarter to our thinking. If you think maybe geographically and then from a micro perspective, geographically, not much has changed on our view on the US, we're threading a needle on that. I think what is more of a shift is a much greater focus on Japan and India relative to China and the US. I think the debate will shift a bit, we won't leave generative A.I behind by any means, but we will shift probably more to talking about EDGE A.I. That is where A.I. is being done on your consumer device, in effect rather than in a data center. And this is something where we see many more catalysts. We see the prospect of killer apps emerging in 2024 to really thrust that debate into people's consciousness. So I think you'll be hearing more about EDGE. So now is the time to get clued up on that if it's not on your radar screen. I think if we're keeping up with the healthcare space, obesity will obviously carry on as a debate, but I think, you know, another piece is on smart chemo. And this is a great topic where there are more catalysts coming up. Not an awful lot is being priced into the underlying equities. Where I think there are exciting things to look forward to. And then the final one is what happens to decarbon renewables. This is a huge debate, but this is the question where you have highly polarized views on both sides. Paul Walsh: Ed, thanks for sharing your views and for all of your great insights through 2023. And we really look forward to what I'm sure will be an interesting and exciting 2024. Ed Stanley: Thank you. Paul Walsh: And to our listeners, thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and do share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

3 Jan 20245min

The auto industry is pivoting from big spending to capital discipline. Our analyst highlights possible areas where investors may find opportunities this year.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley's Head of the Global Autos and Shared Mobility Team. Today I'll be talking about our U.S. autos outlook for 2024. It's Tuesday, January 2nd at 10 a.m. in New York. Heading into 2024, we remain concerned about the future of the U.S. auto industry, in some ways, even more so than during the great financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. But as the auto industry pivots away from big spending on EVs and autonomous vehicles to a relatively more parsimonious era of capital discipline, we see significant upside value unlock for investors. It's been a good run for the automakers. Just think how supportive the overall macroeconomic environment has been for the U.S. auto industry since 2010. U.S. GDP growth averaged well over 2%. Historically low interest rates helped consumers afford big ticket auto purchases. The Chinese auto consumers snapped up Western brands funding rich dividend streams for U.S. automakers. Used car prices were mostly stable or rising, supporting the auto lending complex. And COVID driven inventory scarcity lifted average transaction prices to all time highs, buoying auto companies margins. Looking back, the relatively strong performance of auto companies contributed to ever growing levels of CapEx and R&D in increasingly unfamiliar areas, ranging from battery cell development to software and A.I inference chips, to fully autonomous robotaxis. For years, investors largely supported Detroit's investments in Auto 2.0, with a glass half-full view of legacy car companies' ability to venture into profitable electric vehicle territory. But we're reaching a critical juncture now, and we believe the decisions that will be made over the next 12 months with respect to capital allocation and spending discipline will determine the overall industry and individual automakers performance. We forecast U.S. new car sales to reach 16 million units in 2024, an increase of around 2% from the November 2023 run rate of 15.7 million units. To achieve this growth, we believe car and truck prices need to fall materially. Given stubbornly high interest rates hampering affordability, a 16 million unit seasonally adjusted annual selling rate may require a combination of price cuts and transaction prices down on the order of 5% year-on-year, leaving the value of U.S. auto sales relatively stable year-on-year. We expect a continued melting in used car prices, but not a very sharp fall from here, owing to a continued low supply of certified pre-owned inventory in good condition coming off lease as we approach the third anniversary of the COVID lows. As new inventory continues to recover, we expect steady downward pressure on used prices on the order of 5 or 10% from December 23 to December 24. In terms of EV demand, we expect growth on the order of 15 to 20% in the U.S., keeping penetration in the 8% range. We continue to expect legacy automakers to pull back on EV offerings due largely to a lack of profitability. Startup EV carmakers will likely see constrained production, including by their own choice, into a slowing demand environment where we expect to see hybrid and plug-in hybrid volume making a comeback, potentially rising 40 to 50%. So what themes do we think investors should prepare for? First in an accelerating EV penetration world, we believe internal combustion exposed companies and suppliers may outperform EV exposed suppliers categorically. Secondly, we believe many companies in our coverage have an opportunity to greatly improve capital allocation and efficiency as they dial back expansionary CapEx and prioritize cash generating parts of the portfolio. And finally, we would be increasingly selective on picking winners exposed to long term secular trends like electrification and autonomy, focusing on those firms that can scale such technologies profitably. 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.

2 Jan 20244min

Original Release on November 14th, 2023: Our roundtable discussion on the future of the global economy and markets continues, as our analysts preview what is ahead for government bonds, currencies, housing and more.----- Transcript -----Vishy Tirupattur: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist. This is part two of our special roundtable discussion on what is ahead for the global economy and markets in 2024. It's Tuesday, November 14th at 10 a.m. in New York. Yesterday you heard from Seth Carpenter, our Global Chief Economist, and Mike Wilson, our Chief Investment Officer and the Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today, we will cover what is ahead for government bonds, corporate credit, currencies and housing. I am joined by Matt Hornbach, our Chief Macro Strategist, James Lord, the Global Head of Currency and Emerging Markets Strategy, Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Credit Research, and Jay Bacow, Co-Head of U.S. Securities Products.Vishy Tirupattur: Matt, 2023 was quite a year for long end government bond yields globally. We saw dramatic curve inversion and long end yields reaching levels we had not seen in well over a decade. We've also seen both dramatic sell offs and dramatic rallies, even just in the last few weeks. Against this background, how do you see the outlook for government bond yields in 2024? Matt Hornbach: So we're calling our 2024 outlook for government bond markets the land of confusion. And it's because bond markets were whipped around so much by central banks in 2023 and in 2022. In the end, what central banks gave in terms of accommodative monetary policy in 2020 and 2021, they more than took away in 2022 and this past year. At least when it came to interest rate related monetary policies. 2024, of course, is going to be a pretty confusing year for investors because, as you've heard, our economists do think that rates are going to be coming down, but so too will balance sheets. But for the past couple of years, both G10 and EM central banks have raised rates to levels that we haven't seen in decades. Considering the possibility that equilibrium rates have trended lower over the past few decades, central bank policy rates may be actually much more restricted today than at any point since the 1970s. But, you know, we can't say the same for central bank balance sheets, even though they've been shrinking for well over a year now. They're still larger than before the pandemic. Now, our economists forecast continued declines in the balance sheets of the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. But nevertheless, in aggregate, the balance sheet sizes of these G4 central banks will remain above their pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2024 and 2025.Vishy Tirupattur: Matt, across the developed markets. Where do you see the best opportunity for investors in the government bond markets? Matt Hornbach: So Vishy we think most of the opportunities in 2024 will be in Europe given the diverging paths between eurozone countries. Germany, Austria and Portugal will benefit from supportive supply numbers, while another group, including Italy, Belgium and Ireland will likely witness a higher supply dynamic. Our call for a re widening of EGB spreads should actually last longer than we originally anticipated. Elsewhere in Europe, we're expecting the Bank of England to deliver 100 basis points of cumulative cuts by the end of 2024, and that compares to significantly less that's priced in by the market. Hence, our forecasts for gilts imply a much lower level of yields and a steeper yield curve than what you see implied in current forward rates. So the UK probably presents the best duration and curve opportunity set in 2024. Vishy Tirupattur: Thank you, Matt. James, a strong dollar driven by upside surprises to U.S. growth and higher for longer narrative that has a world during the year characterized the strong dollar view for much of the year. How do you assess 2024 to be? And what differences do you expect between developed markets and emerging market currency markets? James Lord: So we expect the recent strengthening of US dollar to continue for a while longer. This stronger for a longer view on the US dollar is driven by some familiar drivers to what we witnessed in 2023, but with a little bit of nuance. So first, growth. US growth, while slowing, is expected to outperform consensus expectations and remain near potential growth rates in the first half of 2024. This is going to contrast quite sharply with recessionary or near recessionary conditions in Europe and pretty uncompelling rates of growth in China. The second reason we see continued dollar strength is rate differentials. So when we look at our US and European rate strategy teams forecasts, they have rates moving in favor of the dollar. Final reason is defense, really. The dollar likely is going to keep outperforming other currencies around the world due to its pretty defensive characteristics in a world of continued low growth, and downside risks from very tight central bank monetary policy and geopolitical risks. The dollar not only offers liquidity and safe haven status, but also high yields, which is of course making it pretty appealing. We don't expect this early strength in US Dollar to last all year, though, as fiscal support for the US economy falls back and the impact of high rates takes over, US growth slows down and the Fed starts to cut around the middle of the year. And once it starts cutting, our U.S. econ team expects it to cut all the way back to 2.25 to 2.5% by the end of 2025. So a deep easing cycle. As that outlook gets increasingly priced into the US rates, market rate differentials start moving against the dollar to push the currency down. Vishy Tirupattur: Andrew, we are ending 2023 in a reasonably good setup for credit markets, especially at the higher quality end of the trade market. How do you expect this quality based divergence across global trade markets to play out in 2024? Andrew Sheets: That's right. We see a generally supportive environment for credit in 2024, aided by supportive fundamentals, supportive technicals and average valuations. Corporate credit, especially investment grade, is part of a constellation of high quality fixed income that we see putting up good returns next year, both outright and risk adjusted. When we talk about credit being part of this constellation of quality and looking attractive relative to other assets, it's important to appreciate the cross-asset valuations, especially relative to equities, really have moved. For most of the last 20 years the earnings yield on the S&P 500, that is the total earnings you get from the index relative to what you pay for it, has been much higher than the yield on U.S. triple B rated corporate bonds. But that's now flipped with the yield on corporate bonds now higher to one of the greatest extents we've seen outside of a crisis in 20 years. Theoretically, this higher yield on corporate bonds relative to the equity market should suggest a better relative valuation of the former. So what are we seeing now from companies? Well companies are buying back less stock and also issuing less debt than expected, exactly what you'd expect if companies saw the cost of their debt as high relative to where the equities are valued. A potential undershoot in corporate bonds supply could be met with higher bond demand. We've seen enormous year to date flows into money market funds that have absolutely dwarfed the flows into credit. But if the Fed really is done raising rates and is going to start to cut rates next year, as Morgan Stanley's economists expect, this could help push some of this money currently sitting in money market funds into bond funds, as investors look to lock in higher yields for longer. Against this backdrop, we think the credit valuations, for lack of a better word, are fine. With major markets in both the U.S. and Europe generally trading around their long term median and high yield looking a little bit expensive to investment grade within this. Valuations in Asia are the richest in our view, and that's especially true given the heightened economic uncertainty we see in the region. We think that credit curves offer an important way for investors to maximize the return of these kind of average spreads. And we like the 3 to 5 year part of the U.S. credit curve and the 5 to 10 year part of the investment grade curve in Europe the most. Vishy Tirupattur: Thanks, Andrew. Jay, 2023 was indeed a tough year for the agency in the US market, but for the US housing market it held up quite remarkably, despite the higher mortgage rates. As you look ahead to 2024, what is the outlook for US housing and the agency MBS markets and what are the key drivers of your expectations? Jay Bacow: Let's start off with the broader housing market before we get into the views for agency mortgages. Given our outlook for rates to rally next year, my co-head of securitized products research Jim Egan, who also runs US housing, thinks that we should expect affordability to improve and for sale inventory to increase. Both of these developments are constructive for housing activity, but the latter provides a potential counterbalance for home prices. Now, affordability will still be challenged, but the direction of travel matters. He expects housing activity to be stronger in the second half of '24 and for new home sales to increase more than existing home sales over the course of the full year. Home prices should see modest declines as the growth in inventory offsets the increased demand. But it's important to stress here that we believe homeowners retain strong hands in the cycle. We don't believe they will be forced sellers into materially weaker bids, and as such, we don't expect any sizable correction in prices. But we do see home prices down 3% by the end of 2024. Now, that pickup in housing activity means that issuance is going to pick up as well in the agency mortgage market modestly with an extra $50 billion versus where we think 2023 ends. We also think the Fed is going to be reducing their mortgage portfolio for the whole year, even as Q2 starts to taper in the fall, as the Fed allows their mortgage portfolio to run off unabated. And so the private market is going to have to digest about $510 billion mortgages next year, which is still a concerning amount but we think mortgages are priced for this. Vishy Tirupattur: Thanks, Jay. And thank you, Matt, James and Andrew as well. And thank you to our listeners for joining us for this 2 part roundtable discussion of our expectations for the global economy and the markets in 2024. As a reminder, 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.

29 Dec 202311min