One Rate Cut, Many Effects

In the current era of tighter Fed policy, the status quo of stock and bond correlation has changed, calling the foundational 60:40 portfolio into question. Chief Cross Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets and Chief Investment Officer for Wealth Management Lisa Shalett discuss.-----Transcript-----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley Research.Lisa Shalett: And I'm Lisa Shalett, Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.Andrew Sheets: And on part one of this special episode, we'll be discussing the foundational 60/40 stock bond portfolio. In an era of tighter policy, is a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds fundamentally broken? It's Tuesday, August 16th at 4:00 PM in London.Lisa Shalett: And it's 11:00 AM here in New York.Andrew Sheets: Lisa, it's so good to talk to you again. So, you know, one of the most important, fundamental building blocks of asset allocation is the so-called 60/40 portfolio, a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and both of us have been writing about that this year because this strategy of having diversified stocks and bonds worked unusually well for the 40 years up through 2021, but this year has suffered a real historical reversal, seeing some of the worst returns for this diversified balanced strategy we've seen in 40 or 50 years. So when you think about these dynamics, when you think about the historically poor performance, can you give some context of what's been happening here and what our listeners should make of it?Lisa Shalett: Sure, absolutely. I think as we know, we've gone through this 13-year period through the pandemic when the narrative was very much dominated by Federal Reserve intervention repression and keeping down of interest rates and in fact, falling interest rates, that produced financial market returns both for stocks and for bonds. But as we know, entering 2022, that narrative that was so concentrated on the direction of interest rates, you know, faced a major pivot from the Federal Reserve itself who, as we know, was facing an inflation fight which meant that they were going to have to move the federal funds rate up pretty significantly. The implication of that was pretty devastating for both stocks and bonds, that combined 60/40 portfolio delivered aggregate returns of about -12 to -13% on average that's the performance for that diversified portfolio benchmark in over 50 years. But again, we have to remember a lot of that performance was coming from a starting point where both stocks and bonds had been extraordinarily valued with those valuations premised on a continuation of Federal Reserve policy that unfortunately because of inflation has had to changeAndrew Sheets: Lisa I'm so glad you mentioned that starting point of valuations because, you know, it matters, I think in two really important ways. One, it helps us maybe understand better what's been happening this year, but also, you know, usually when prices fall, and this year prices are still down considerably from where they started, that means better valuations and better returns going forward. So, you know, could you just give a little bit more context of you and your team run a lot of estimates for what asset classes can return potentially over longer horizons. You know, maybe what that looked like for a 60/40 portfolio at the start of this year, when, as you mentioned, both stocks and bonds were pretty richly valued, and then how that's been developing as the year has progressed.Lisa Shalett: Yeah. So, fantastic question. And, you know, we came into 2022 quite frankly, on a strategic horizon given where valuations were, not very excited about either asset class. You know for bonds, we were looking for maybe 0-2% or somewhat below coupon, because of the pressures of repricing on bonds. And for stocks we were looking for something in the, you know, 4-5% range, which was significantly below what historical long term capital market assumptions, you know, might expect for many institutional clients who benchmark themselves off of a 7.5 or 8% return ambition. So, when we entered this bear market, this kind of ferocious selloff, as we noted, from January through June, there were many folks who were hoping that perhaps valuations and forward looking expectations of returns were improving. Importantly, however, what we've seen is that hasn't been the case because what you have to do when you're thinking about valuation is you've gotta look at stock valuations relative to the level of interest rates.And we're now in a scenario where, you know, the terminal value for the US economy may be something very different than it was and that means somewhat lower valuations. So, you know, if I had to put a number on it right now, my expectations for equity returns going forward from the current mark to market is really no better, unfortunately, than perhaps where it was in January. For bonds on the other hand, we've made some progress. And so to me, you know, I, I could see our estimates on bonds being a little bit more constructive than where they were with the 10 year yield somewhere in the, in the 2.8 zip code. Lisa Shalett: So Andrew we've talked about the stock bond correlation as keying off the direction of inflation and the path of Fed policy. With both of those changing, do you view a positive correlation as likely over the longer term?Andrew Sheets: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Lisa. So I think this issue of stock bond correlation is, is really interesting and, and gets a lot of attention for, for good reasons. And then, I think, can also be a little bit misinterpreted. So the reason the correlation is important is, I think, probably obvious to the listeners, if you have a diversified portfolio of assets, you want them to kind of not all move together. That's the whole point of diversification. You want your assets to go up and down on different days, and that smooths the overall return. Now, you know, interestingly for a lot of the last hundred years, the stock bond correlation was positive. Stock and bond prices tended to move in the same direction, which means stock and bond yields tended to move in the opposite direction. So higher yields meant lower stock prices.That was the history for a lot of time, kind of prior to 2000. The reason I think that happened was because inflation was the dominant fear of markets over a lot of that period and inflation was very volatile. And so higher yields generally meant a worsening inflation backdrop, which was bad for stock prices and lower bond yields tended to mean inflation was getting back under control, and that was better for stocks. Now, what's interesting is in the 90s that dynamic really kinda started to change. And after 2000, after the dot-com bubble burst, the fear really turned to growth. The market became a lot less concerned about inflationary pressure, but a lot more concerned about growth. And that meant that when yields were rising, the market saw that as growth being better. So the thing they were afraid of was getting less bad, which was better for stock prices.So, you had this really interesting flip of correlation where once inflation was tamed really in the 90s, the markets started to see higher yields, meaning better growth rather than higher inflation, which meant that stocks and bonds tend to have a negative correlation. Their prices tend to more often move in opposite directions. And as you alluded to, that really created this golden age of stock bond diversification that created this golden age of 60/40 portfolios, because both of these assets were delivering positive returns, but they were delivering them at different times. And so offsetting and cushioning each other's price movements, which is really, you know, the ideal of anybody trying to invest for the long run and, and diversify a portfolio. So that's changed this year. It's been very apparent this year that both stock and bond prices have gone down and gone down together in a pretty significant way.But I think as we look forward, we also shouldn't overstate this change. You know, I think your point, Lisa, about just how expensive things were at the start of the year is really important. You know, anytime an asset is very expensive, it is much more vulnerable to dropping and given that both stocks and bonds were both expensive at the same time and both very expensive at the same time, you know, their dropping together I think was, was also a function of their valuation as much of anything else. So, I think going forward, it makes sense to assume kind of a middle ground. You know, I don't think we are going to have the same negative correlation we enjoyed over the last, you know, 15 years, but I also don't think we're going back to the very positive correlations we had, you know, kind of prior to the 1990s.And so, you know, I think for investors, we should think about that as less diversification they get to enjoy in a portfolio, but that doesn't mean it's no diversification. And given that bonds are so much less volatile than stocks, you know, bonds might have a third of the volatility of the stock market, if we look at kind of volatility over the last five years. That still is some pretty useful ballast in a portfolio. That still means a large chunk of the portfolio is moving around a lot less and helping to stabilize the overall asset pool. Andrew Sheets: Thanks for listening. Tomorrow I’ll be continuing my conversation with Lisa Shalett, and as a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

16 Aug 20229min

Based on July reports inflation may finally be cooling down, and the labor market remains strong, so how might this new data influence policy changes in the September FOMC meeting?-----Transcript-----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ellen Zentner, Chief U.S. Economist for Morgan Stanley Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be catching you up to speed on U.S. inflation, the labor market and our outlook for Fed policy. It's Monday, August 15th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Let me start with some encouraging news. If we look at the July readings for both the Consumer Price Index data and the Producer Price Index, inflation finally appears to be cooling. And that should take some pressure off the Fed to deliver another 75 basis point hike in September. So that's the good news. However, inflation is still elevated and that suggests the Fed still has a lot of work to do, even if there's a reduced need for a third consecutive 75. We're forecasting a 50 basis point hike at the September and November meetings and 25 basis points in December for a peak interest rate of 3.625%. Okay, let's look a bit more under the hood. July CPI on both headline and core measures surprised to the downside, and the PPI came in softer as well. Together, the reports point to a lower than previously anticipated inflation print that will be released on August 26th. Now, the recent blowout July employment report led markets to price a high probability of a 75 basis point hike. But the inflation data then came in lower than expected and pushed the probability back toward 50 basis points. Based on the outlook for declining energy prices, we think headline inflation should continue to come down and do so quite quickly. However, core inflation pressures remain uncomfortably high and are likely to persist. For the Fed signs of a turn around in headline inflation are helpful and are already showing up in lower household inflation expectations. However, trends in core are more indicative of the trajectory for underlying inflation pressures, and Fed officials came out in droves last week to stress that the steep path for rates remains the base case. Sticky core inflation is a key reason why we expect the Fed to hold at 3.625% Fed funds, before making the first cut toward normalizing policy in December 2023. Now, let me speak to July's surprising employment report. As the data showed, the labor market remains strong, even though some of the data flow has begun to diverge in recent months. Leading up to the recent release, the market had taken the softening in employment in the household survey, so that is the employment measure that just goes out to households and polls them, were you employed, were you not, were you part time, were you full time, and generally because that's been very weak, the market was taking it as a potential harbinger of a turn in the payrolls data, payrolls data are collected from companies that just ask each company how many folks are on your payrolls. Household survey employment was again softer in July, coming in at 179,000 versus 528,000 for the payroll survey. Now, this seems like a sizable disparity, but it's actually not unusual for the household and payroll surveys to diverge over shorter periods of time. And these near term divergences largely reflect methodological differences. But what's interesting here and worth noting is that these differences in data likely reflect a shift in the form of employment. While the economy saw a large increase in self-employment in the early stages of the pandemic, the data now suggest workers may be returning to traditional payroll jobs, potentially because of higher nominal wages and better opportunities. If the economy is increasingly pulling workers out of self-employment and into traditional payroll jobs, similar pull effects are likely reaching workers currently out of the labor force. And this brings me to one of our key expectations for the next year and a half, which is a continued increase in labor force participation, in particular driven by prime age workers age 25 to 54. Higher wages, better job opportunities and rising cost of living will likely bring workers back into the labor force, even as overall job growth slows. Fed researchers, in fact, have recently documented that a delayed recovery in labor force participation is quite normal, and that's something we think is likely to play out again in this cycle. 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.

15 Aug 20224min

As inflation persists, economic concerns such as recession rise, and consumer spending patterns begin to shift, is there any evidence to suggest consumers are already trading down to value and discount products? U.S. Softlines Analyst Kimberly Greenberger and Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst Simeon Gutman discuss.-----Transcript-----Kimberly Greenberger: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Kimberly Greenberger, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Softlines Analyst. Simeon Gutman: And I'm Simeon Gutman, Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst. Kimberly Greenberger: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll be discussing shifting consumer spending patterns amid persistent inflation and concerns about the economy. It's Friday, August 12th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Kimberly Greenberger: As our listeners are no doubt aware, many retail segments were big pandemic beneficiaries with record sales growth and margins for 2+ years. But now that spending on goods is normalizing from high levels and consumers are facing record high inflation and worrying about a potential recession, we're starting to see signs of what's called "trade down", which is a consumer migration from more expensive products to value priced products. So Simeon, in your broad coverage, are you seeing any evidence that consumers are trading down already? Simeon Gutman: We're seeing it in two primary ways. First, we're seeing some reversion away from durable, high ticket items away to consumable items. And the pace of consumption of some of these high ticket durable items is waning and pretty rapidly. Some of these are items that were very strong during the pandemic, electronics, some sporting goods items, home furnishings, to name a few. So these items we're seeing material sales deceleration as one form of trade down. As another in the food retail sector, we're definitely seeing signs of consumers spending less or finding ways to spend less inside the grocery store. They can do that by trading down from national brands to private brands, buying less expensive alternative, buying frozen instead of fresh and even in the meat counter, buying less expensive forms of protein. So we're seeing it manifest in those two ways. What is the situation in softlines, Kimberly? Is your coverage vulnerable to trade down risk? Kimberly Greenberger: Absolutely. In softlines retail, which is apparel, footwear, accessories retail, these are discretionary categories. Yes, there's sort of a minimum level of spending that's necessary because clothing is part of the essentials, food, shelter, clothing. But Americans' closets are full and they're full because last year there was a great deal of overspending on the apparel category. So where we have seen trade down impact our sector this year, Simeon, is we have seen consumers budget cutting and moving away from some of those more discretionary categories like apparel especially. We just have not yet seen any benefits to some of the more value oriented retailers that we would expect to see in the future if this behavior persists. Simeon Gutman: So when we're thinking about the context of our collaborative work with other Morgan Stanley sector analysts around trade down risks, what do you hear, Kimberly, about the impact on segments such as household products and restaurants? Kimberly Greenberger: We have found most fascinating, actually, the study of those real high frequency purchases. Because in order to understand how consumer behavior is changing at the margin, we think it's most important to look at what consumers were spending on last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago as a better indication of what they're likely to spend on for the next three or six months. How that behavior has been changing is that on those of very high frequency purchases like the daily tobacco purchase or the daily food at home purchase, as you mentioned, is that there is trade down from higher priced brands and products into more value oriented brands and products. The same thing is happening in fast food. Another category that we consume on a somewhat more frequent basis than, for example, eating in casual dining restaurants where we're sitting down for a meal. So now we've got a good number of months of evidence that this is, in fact, happening, and that gives us more conviction that it's likely to continue through the second half of the year. So Simeon, in your view, what parts of retail are the likely winners and laggards should this trade down behavior persist and broaden out, particularly if a recession did materialize? Simeon Gutman: So in the event of a recession, I think the typical answers here are a little bit easier to identify. The two big beneficiaries, the channel beneficiaries, would be the dollar slash discount stores and then secondarily, off price. First, the dollar and discount stores, they are already seeing some initial signs of trade down and that is mostly in the consumable area. That is the place where the consumer feels the pinch immediately. The other piece of it is the discretionary spend. The longer these conditions persist, high inflation and potential other pressures on the consumer, then you'll start to see a more pronounced trade down and shift of discretionary purchases. And that's where off price plays a role. Kimberly Greenberger: Simeon, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. Simeon Gutman: Great speaking with you, Kimberly. Kimberly Greenberger: As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people to find the show.

12 Aug 20225min

As bitcoin has been experiencing a steep decline in the last 6 months, investors are beginning to wonder when Cryptocurrencies will finally bottom out and start the cycle anew.Digital assets, sometimes known as cryptocurrency, are a digital representation of a value that function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a store of value, but generally do not have legal tender status. Digital assets have no intrinsic value and there is no investment underlying digital assets. The value of digital assets is derived by market forces of supply and demand, and is therefore more volatile than traditional currencies’ value. Investing in digital assets is risky, and transacting in digital assets carries various risks, including but not limited to fraud, theft, market volatility, market manipulation, and cybersecurity failures—such as the risk of hacking, theft, programming bugs, and accidental loss. Additionally, there is no guarantee that any entity that currently accepts digital assets as payment will do so in the future. The volatility and unpredictability of the price of digital assets may lead to significant and immediate losses. It may not be possible to liquidate a digital assets position in a timely manner at a reasonable price.Regulation of digital assets continues to develop globally and, as such, federal, state, or foreign governments may restrict the use and exchange of any or all digital assets, further contributing to their volatility. Digital assets stored online are not insured and do not have the same protections or safeguards of bank deposits in the US or other jurisdictions. Digital assets can be exchanged for US dollars or other currencies, but are not generally backed nor supported by any government or central bank.Before purchasing, investors should note that risks applicable to one digital asset may not be the same risks applicable to other forms of digital assets. Markets and exchanges for digital assets are not currently regulated in the same manner and do not provide the customer protections available in equities, fixed income, options, futures, commodities or foreign exchange markets.Morgan Stanley and its affiliates do business that may relate to some of the digital assets or other related products discussed in Morgan Stanley Research. These could include market making, providing liquidity, fund management, commercial banking, extension of credit, investment services and investment banking.-----Transcript-----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Sheena Shah, Lead Cryptocurrency Strategist for Morgan Stanley Research. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I address the question everyone seems to be asking about the crypto cycle: when will crypto prices find a bottom? It's Thursday, August 11th, at 5 p.m. in London. After a 75% peak to trough fall in bitcoin's price between November 2021 and June this year, it seems like almost everyone in the market is asking the same question. When will crypto prices find the bottom? We will discuss three topics related to this question; the pace of new bitcoin creation, past bitcoin cycles and dollar liquidity. What can bitcoin's creation tell us about where we are in the crypto cycle? Bitcoin's relatively short history means there is little available data, and yet the data is quite rich. In its short 12 year history, bitcoin has experienced at least 10 bull and bear cycles. Bitcoin creation follows a 4 year cycle. Within these 4 year cycles, price action has so far followed three distinct phases. First, there is a rapid and almost exponential rise in price. Second, at a peak in price, a bear market follows. And third, prices move sideways, eventually leading into a new bull market. The question for investors today is, is bitcoin's price moving out of the second phase and into the third? Only time will tell. There have only been three of these halving cycles in the past, and so it is difficult to conclude that these cycles will repeat in the future. What about past bear markets? The 75% peak to trough fall in bitcoin's price and this cycle is currently faring better than previous cycles, in which the falls after peaks in 2011, 2013 and 2017 ranged between 85 and 95%. There is, therefore, speculation about whether this cycle has further to drop. Previous cycles have shed similar characteristics. In the bull runs there was speculation about the potential of a particular part of the crypto ecosystem. In 2011, it was the excitement about Bitcoin and the development of ecosystem technologies like exchanges and wallets. In 2020 to 2021, this cycle, there were NFTs, DeFi and the rising dominance of the institutional investor. In previous cycles, the bear runs were triggered by regulatory clampdowns or a dominant exchange being hacked. In 2013, a crackdown in China led to the world's largest exchange at that time, BTC China, stopping customer deposits. In this cycle, the liquidity tap dried up as inflation concerns gripped the market. Central bank liquidity and government stimulus fueled the speculation driven 2020-2022 crypto cycle. For this reason, day to day crypto traders are focusing on what the U.S. Federal Reserve plans to do with its interest rates and availability of dollars. To find a bottom, there are two liquidity related factors to look out for. First, market expectations that central banks will continue to tighten the money supply, turn into expectations that central banks will resume monetary expansion. Second, crypto companies increase appetite to build crypto leverage again. Both of these would increase liquidity and drive a new cycle of speculation. Which brings us back to the question about the bottom of the crypto cycle that almost everyone is asking: are we there yet? To answer that question, look at bitcoin creation, past cycles and above all, liquidity. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed Thoughts on the Market, share this and other episodes with a friend or colleague today.

11 Aug 20223min

The Senate just passed the Inflation Reduction Act which seeks to fight inflation on a variety of fronts, but the most pressing question is, will the IRA actually impact inflation?-----Transcript-----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Head of U.S. Public Policy Research and Municipal Strategy. Ellen Zentner: And I'm Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley's Chief U.S. Economist. Michael Zezas: And on this special episode of Thoughts on the Market, we'll discuss the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, with a focus on its impact on the U.S. economic outlook. It's Wednesday, August 10th, at noon in New York. Michael Zezas: So, Ellen, the Senate just passed the Democrats Inflation Reduction Act on a party line vote. And we know this has been a long awaited centerpiece to President Biden's agenda. But let me start with one of the more pressing questions here; from your perspective, does the Inflation Reduction Act reduce inflation? Or maybe more specifically, does it reduce inflation in a way that impacts how the Fed looks at inflation and how markets look at inflation? Ellen Zentner: So for it to impact the Fed today and how the markets are looking at inflation, it really has to show very near term effects here, where the IRA focuses more on longer term effects on inflation. So today we've got recent inflation report that came out this week showing that inflation moved lower, so softened. Especially showing the effects of those lower energy prices, which everyone notices because you go and gas up at the pump and so, you know right away what inflation is doing. And that's led to some more optimism from households. That at least gives the Fed some comfort, right, that they're doing the right thing here, raising rates and helping to bring inflation down. But there's a good deal more work for the Fed to do, and we think they raise rates by another 50 basis points at their September meeting. The rates market also took note of some of the inflation metrics of late that are looking a little bit better. But still, it's not definitive for markets what the Fed will do. We need a couple of more data points over the next few months. So the IRA is just a completely separate issue right now for the Fed and markets because that's going to be in the longer run impact. Michael Zezas: So the bill is constructed to actually pay down the federal government deficit by about $300 billion over 10 years, and conventional wisdom is that when you're reducing deficits, you're helping to calm inflation. Is that still the case here? Ellen Zentner: So it's still the case in general because it means less government debt that has to be issued. But let's put it in perspective, $300 billion deficit reduction spread over ten years is 30 billion a year in an economy that's greater than 20 trillion. And so it's very difficult to see. Michael Zezas: Okay, so the Inflation Reduction Act seems like it helps over the long term, but probably not a game changer in the short term. Ellen Zentner: That's right. Michael Zezas: Let's talk about some of the more specific elements within the bill and their potential impact on inflation over the longer term. So, for example, the IRA extends Affordable Care Act subsidies. It also allows Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs, or at least some prescription drugs, for the first time. How do you view the impacts of those provisions? Ellen Zentner: So these are really the provisions that get at the meat of impacting inflation over the longer run. And I'll focus in on health care costs here. So specifically, drug prices have been quite high. Being able to lower drug prices helps lower income households, that helps older cohorts, and the cost of medical services gets a very large weight in overall consumer inflation and it gets a large weight because we spend so much on it. The other thing I'd note here, though, is that since it allows Medicare to negotiate prices for some drugs for the first time, well, that word negotiate is key here. It takes time to negotiate price changes, and that's why this bill is more something that affects longer run inflation rather than near term. Michael Zezas: Right. So bottom line, for market participants, this Inflation Reduction Act might ultimately deliver on its name. But if you want to understand what the Fed is going to do in the short term and how it might impact the rates markets, better off paying attention to incoming data over the next few months. It's also fair to say there's other market effects to watch emanating from the IRA, namely corporate tax effects and spending on clean energy. Those are two topics we're going to get into in podcasts over the next couple of weeks. Michael Zezas: Ellen, thanks for taking the time to talk. Ellen Zentner: Great speaking with you, Michael. Michael Zezas: As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us on the Apple Podcasts app. It helps more people find the show.

10 Aug 20224min

As lending standards tighten and banks get ready to make some tough choices, how will the housing market fare if loan growth slows? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.-----Transcript-----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jim Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jay Bacow: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing how tightening lending standards could impact housing activity. It's Tuesday, August 9th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Jim Egan: Now Jay, you published a high level report last week with Vishy Tirupattur, who is the Head of Fixed Income Research here at Morgan Stanley, on the coming capital crunch. Basically, rising capital pressures will mean that banks will have to make tough choices in their lending books. Is that about right? Jay Bacow: Yeah, that's it. Basically, we don't think that markets have really appreciated the impact of the combination of how rising rates caused losses on banks portfolios, the regulatory changes and the results of the stress test capital buffers. All of these things are going to require banks to look at the composition of not just the assets that they own, but their business models in general. Our large cap banking analyst Betsy Graseck thinks that banks are going to look at things differently to come up with different solutions depending on the bank, but in general across the industry, expects lending standards to tighten for this year and in 2023, and for loan growth to slow. So, Jim, if banks are going to tighten lending standards then what does that mean for housing activity? Jim Egan: I think, especially if we look at home sales, that's a negative for sales volumes and home sales are already falling. We've talked about affordability deterioration on this podcast a few times now, not just the fact of where affordability is in the housing market, but how rapidly it's deteriorating. If lending standards are going to tighten on top of those affordability pressures, then that just argues for potentially an even more substantial decrease in sales volumes going forward, and we're already seeing this in the data. Through the first half of the year new home sales are down 14% versus the first half of 2021. Purchase applications, that's our highest frequency data point that we have, they're getting progressively weaker each month. They were down 17% year over year in June, 19% year over year in July. Existing home sales, and that's referencing a much larger volume of sales then new home sales, they're down a comparatively strong 8% year to date. But with all of the dynamics that we're discussing, we believe that they're going to see a much more precipitous drop in the second half of the year. We have it down over 15% year over year versus 2021. Now, that's because of affordability pressures. It's because of the potential for tightening lending standards. It's also because of the lock in effect from a rate perspective. Jay Bacow: On that lock in effect, with just 2% of the market having incentive to refinance, lenders are sitting there and saying, well, what do we do in this environment where we can't just give people a rate refi? Now, you mentioned the purchase activity, that's obviously one area, but Black Knight just reported another quarterly record of untapped equity in the housing market, and consumers would love to be able to tap that. The problem is when you do a cash out refinance, you end up increasing the rate on your entire mortgage. And homeowners don't want to do that. So they'd love to do something like a home equity line of credit or second lien where they're getting charged the higher rate on just the equity they take out. But the problem is it's harder to originate those in an environment where lending standards are tightening, particularly given the capital allocation against those type of loans can be onerous. Jim Egan: Right. And the level of conversations around an increase in kind of the second lien or the hill market have certainly been picking up over the past weeks and months, both on the originator side, on the investor side, as people look to find ways to access that record amount of equity that you mentioned in the housing market. Jay Bacow: Thinking about trying, people are still trying to sell houses and you just commented on the housing activity, but what about the prices they're selling at? Some of the recent data was pretty surprising. Jim Egan: The most recent month of data, I think the point that has raised the most eyebrows was the average or median price of new home sales saw a pretty significant month over month decrease. We continue to see month over month increases in the median and average price of existing home sales at. When we think about average and median prices, there's a mix shift issue there. So month over month, depending on the types of homes that sell things can move. What we actually forecast, the repeat sales index Case-Shiller, we're starting to see a slowdown in growth. The past two months have been consecutive deceleration in the pace of home price growth. I think the thing that we'd highlight most is the growing geographic pervasiveness of the slowdown. Two months ago, 11 of the Case-Shiller 20 city index was showing a deceleration month over month. This past month, it was 16. Now, all 20 cities continue to show home price growth, but again, 16 are showing that pace slowdown. There is some regional specificity to this, the cities that continue to accelerate largely in Florida, Miami and Tampa to name two. Jay Bacow: Okay. So that's what we've seen. What do we expect to see on a go forward basis? Jim Egan: We talked about our expectations for sales a few minutes ago. I think the one thing that we do want to highlight is on the starts front, we think that single unit starts are going to start to decrease over the course of the back half of this year. There's a couple of reasons for that. We talked about affordability pressures, another dynamic that's been playing out in the space is that there's been a backlog not just of housing starts, but before those starts to get the completion units under construction has swollen back to 2004 levels, starts themselves are only at 1997 levels. We do think that that is going to kind of disincentivize starts going forward. We're already starting to see it a little bit in the underlying data, trailing 12 month single unit starts had plateaued for largely a year. They've been down the past two months, we think that they're going to continue to fall in the back half of this year. It's already playing through from a sentiment perspective, homebuilder confidence is down 39% from its peak in November of 2020, and that's being driven by their perception of traffic on their sites as well as their perception of future sales conditions. So we do think that starts are going to fall because a number of these dynamics. And we think that home price growth is going to remain positive and we've highlighted this on this podcast before, but the pace is going to start slowing pretty materially in the back half of this year. The most recent print was 19.7%, down from over 20%, but we think it gets all the way to 9% by December 2022, 3% by December 2023. So continued home price growth, but the pace is going to slow pretty materially. Jim Egan: Jay, thanks for taking the time to talk. Jay Bacow: Jim. Always a pleasure. Jim Egan: 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.

9 Aug 20226min

While inflation remains high and the battle to bring it down is top of mind, there may be some opportunities in technologies that could help bring down inflation in some sectors.-----Transcript-----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Josh Pokrzywinski, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Electrical Equipment and Multi-Industry Analyst. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about deflationary opportunities in this high inflation environment. It's Monday, August 8th, at 4 p.m. in New York. As most listeners no doubt know, the battle to bring down inflation is the topic of 2022. But today I want to talk about inflation from a slightly different perspective, and that's how automation and productivity enhancing technologies could actually help bring down inflation in areas such as labor, supply chain procurement and energy. And while these technologies require capital investment, something that's often difficult when the economy is uncertain, we believe structural changes in demographics, energy policy and security, and an aging capital base make technologies focused on cost reductions and productivity actually more valuable. So for investors focusing on stocks that enable productivity and cost reduction through automation, efficiency, or their own declining cost curves while maintaining strong barriers to entry and attractive equity risk/reward, is something to consider. To dig into this, the U.S. Equity Strategy Team and equity analysts across the spectrum at Morgan Stanley Research created a deflation enabler shopping list. And that list is composed of stocks that produce tangible cost savings for their customers, where costs themselves are rising due to inflation, such as labor and energy, or scarcity, for example semiconductors or materials. In many cases, the cost of the product itself has also come down through technology or economies of scale, benefitting the purchaser and therefore adoption on both lower cost to implement and higher cost avoidance through use. So where should investors look? Although there are a number of deflationary companies across areas such as automation and semiconductors, we identified three major deflationary technologies which permeate across sectors and which are at long term inflection points in their importance for both enterprise and consumer. The first is artificial intelligence or AI. AI is proving relentless and increasingly deflationary. In biotech, AI could shorten development timelines, lower R&D spend and improve probability of success. The second is clean energy. My colleague Stephen Burd, who covers clean energy and utilities, has pointed out that against the backdrop of inflationary fossil fuels and utility bills, companies with deflationary clean energy technologies and high barriers to entry will be able to grow rapidly and generate increasing margins. And finally, mass energy storage and mobility. Although the cost of batteries have been falling for some time, competition in the space has led to heightened investment. In addition, ambitious top down government emissions goals have facilitated an exponential uplift in demand for batteries and their component raw materials. Although supply chains for batteries remain immature, battery storage technology is only beginning to have profound effects on society mobility, inclusivity and ultimately climate. As investment by automakers rises along with generous European subsidies aimed at staying competitive with U.S. and Chinese investment, the supply chain and innovation in new battery technologies such as solid state mean that the price should continue to fall as innovation and demand rise. This is extended beyond the personal vehicle market, with the cost savings and efficiency improvements driving profound changes and improvements in the range and cost of heavy duty and long haul trucking EV, and ultimately autonomous, markets. To sum up, in an inflationary world we believe companies that have developed deflationary products and services will become increasingly valuable, as long as they have significant barriers to entry with respect to those products and services. 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.

8 Aug 20223min

The current market pricing can tell investors a lot about what the market believes is coming next, but the future is uncertain and investors may not always agree with market expectations. Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Andrew Sheets explains.--- Transcript ---Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for 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, August 5th, at 2 p.m. in London.Trying to predict where financial markets will go is difficult. The future, as they say, is uncertain, and even the most talented investors and forecasters will frequently struggle to get these predictions right.A different form of this question, however, might be easier. What do markets assume will happen? After all, these assumptions are the result of thousands of different actors, most of which are trying very hard to make accurate predictions about future market prices because a lot of money is on the line. Not only is there a lot of information in those assumptions, but understanding them are table stakes for a lot of investment strategy. After all, if our view only matches what is already expected by the market to happen, it is simply much less meaningful.Let's start with central banks, where current market pricing can tell us quite a bit. Markets expect the Fed to raise rates by another 100 basis points between now and February to about three and a half percent. And then from there, the Fed is expected to reverse course, reducing rates by about half a percent by the end of 2023. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is expected to raise rates steadily from a current level of 0 to 1.1% over the next 12 months.Morgan Stanley's economists see it differently in both regions. In the U.S., we think the Fed will take rates a little higher than markets expect by year end and then leave them higher for longer than markets currently imply. In the U.S., we think the Fed will take rates higher than markets expect by year end and then leave them higher for longer than is currently implied. In Europe, it's the opposite. We think the ECB will raise rates more slowly than markets imply. The idea that the Fed may do more than expected while the ECB does less is one reason we forecast the US dollar to strengthen further against the euro.A rich set of future expectations also exists in the commodity market. For example, markets expect oil prices to be about 10% lower in 12 months time. Gasoline is priced to be about 15% lower between now and the end of the year. The price of gold, in contrast, is expected to be about 3% more expensive over the next 12 months.I’d stress that these predictions are not some sort of cheat code for the market. The fact that oil is priced to decline 10% doesn't mean that you can make 10% today by selling oil. Rather, it means that foreign investor, a 10% decline in oil, or a 3% rise in gold will simply mean you break even over the next 12 months.Again, all of this pricing informs our views. We forecast oil to decline less and gold to decline more than market prices imply. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley equity analysts can work backwards looking at what these commodity expectations would mean for the companies that produce them. We won't get into that here, but it's yet another way that we can take advantage of information the market is already giving us.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.

6 Aug 20223min