Europe in the Global AI Race

Our Global Head of Fixed Income recaps the aftermath of the first U.S. presidential debate, and how markets may react if forthcoming poll data shows a meaningful shift in the race.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the US elections and its impact on markets.It's Tuesday, July 2nd at 10:30am in New York. For months, investors have been asking us when markets will start paying attention to the US presidential election. Well, we think that time arrived with last week’s Presidential debate. The media coverage that followed revealed that many Democratic party officials became concerned about President Biden’s ability to win the November election. This understandably led many to ask if the race for the White House had meaningfully changed; If it was no longer a close one – and if so, what would that mean for markets that might have to start pricing in the impacts of a Trump Presidency. On the first question: While we think it's too early to conclude that the race is no longer a close one, we expect some data in the next week or two that could clarify this. The few polls that have been released following the debate show that voters are increasingly concerned about Biden’s ability to win; but they also show a level of support for Biden similar to what he enjoyed before the debates. What we haven’t seen yet is a set of high-quality polls gauging swing state voter preferences. And even modest deterioration in Biden’s support there could meaningfully boost Trump’s prospects. That’s because, going into the debate, polls showed former President Trump with a small but consistent lead in national and key swing state polls. Nothing outside the polling margin of error. But it still suggested that for President Biden to improve his odds of winning, he’d be served well by having a strong debate performance that moved the polls more in his favor. It doesn’t appear that this has happened, and if polls show movement in the other direction for Biden, it would be fair to think of Trump as something of a favorite. But only for the time being. There’d still be time and catalysts for the race to change – including another scheduled debate in September. If we do end up with a race where Former President Trump is a more clear favorite, even if just for a short time, there could be reflections in the market. As we’ve previously discussed, a Trump win increases the chances of more of the expiring tax cuts being extended. The benefits of those cuts most clearly accrue to key sectors like energy and telecom, so there’s potential outperformance there. In fixed-income – a steeper US Treasury yield curve is an outcome our macro strategy team is particularly attuned to. That’s because a Trump presidency brings greater uncertainty about future fiscal policy, which could be reflected in relatively higher yields for longer maturity bonds. But it also increases the chances of policy choices that create near term pressure on economic growth that could push shorter maturity yields lower. This includes higher tariffs and tighter immigration policies. So bottom line, the markets are paying attention. And the race is sure to have many more twists and turns. We’ll keep you updated on how we’re navigating it. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

2 Juli 20243min

Rising rents and mortgage payments have been at the center of the inflation discussion. Our Global Chief Economist assesses whether monetary policy can effectively blunt those figures. ----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the housing market, inflation, growth and monetary policy. It's Monday, July 1st, at 11am in New York. Housing is at the center of many macro debates from growth to inflation. And when you put those two together – monetary policy. House prices have continued to rise despite high interest rates, which gives the impression to some of stalled deflation and forces consumers at times to make some really difficult choices. And in some economies, there's a seeming lack of responsiveness of housing to higher interest rates. All of which tends to prompt questions about the efficacy of monetary policy. So where are we? We think monetary policy is still working through housing as it usually does, but supply shortages, or in some places just idiosyncratic factors like buildable lands or permitting, that's supported home prices. And as has been the case across several sectors in this business cycle, there really are some factors about housing that's just different in this cycle than in previous ones. For the U.S., a key part of the housing story has been the mortgage lock in for homeowners. Our strategists have noted that the gap between the current new mortgage rate and the average effective mortgage rate is at historical highs. And the share of 30 year fixed rate mortgages is at its highest in a decade. Consequently, the inventory of existing houses has remained low because homeowners who have those really low mortgages are reluctant to move unless they have to. The market has become thinner with less available supply; and then if we think more broadly for the economy, there's a risk of labor market frictions if that mortgage lock in also reduces labor mobility. Now, there will be a decline in mortgage rates if we get the modest easing cycle from the Fed that we expect. But that decline will be similarly modest so that gap in rates will not be fully closed even if it narrows. And so there might be some uplift to supply of housing, but it might not be huge. That decline in mortgage rates can also supply demand, so then we have to think about the net of this shift in demand and the shift in supply. And ultimately what we think is going to happen is that there'll be a moderation in home price appreciation, but not an outright decline in home prices.First, the choice of housing for a lot of households is do you buy or do you rent? If you've got high home prices and high mortgages, buying is much less affordable and so it pushes people into renting, which could push up rents. That phenomenon is partly responsible for the surge in rents that we've seen over the past few years. In the longer run, there should be a sort of arbitrage condition between home prices and rents. And while rising home prices can impinge the spending power for first time homebuyers, rising house prices can actually boost sentiment and consumption for existing homeowners. And that mortgage lock in that I talked about before? Well, that can actually support aggregate consumption to some degree because now there's predictability of cash flows and the monthly payment is pretty low. So what do we do when we take all of this together? The housing market might be telling us that monetary policy is working a bit less effectively than historically, but not that monetary policy is not working. Home price appreciation is moderating. Housing starts have slowed, as usual, following those big rate increases. But that slowing? It's actually been a bit inconsistent because mortgage lock has meant that new supply is the only supply. Existing home sales, by contrast, are just plain weak. They're about as weak as they were around the financial crisis. We do not think the housing market overall is at risk of collapse, but monetary policy is restraining activity in a very familiar way. Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

1 Juli 20244min

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research makes the case against the popular notion that solid economic data would be bad for markets, and instead offers a rationale for why now, more than ever, is the time for investors to root for positive economic developments. ----- 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, today I'll be talking about why good data … is good.It's Friday, June 28th at 2pm in London. One of the bigger investor debates of 2024 is whether stronger or weaker economic data is the preferred outcome for the market. This isn’t a trick question. Post-COVID, a large spike of inflation led to the fastest pace of interest rate hikes by central banks in over forty years. And so there’s been an idea that weaker economic data, which would reduce that inflationary pressure and make central banks more likely to cut interest rates, is actually the better outcome for the market. Those lower interest rates after all might be helpful for moving the market higher or tighter. And stronger economic data, in contrast, could lead to more inflationary pressure, and even more rate increases. And so by this logic, bad data is good … and good data, well, would be bad. This “bad is good” mindset was prominent in the Autumn of 2022 and again in September of 2023, as markets weakened on stronger data and fears that it could drive further rate hikes. We saw the idea return this year, amidst higher-than-expected inflation readings in the first quarter. But we currently think this logic is misplaced. For markets, and certainly for credit, we think those who are constructive, like ourselves, are very much rooting for solid economic data. For now, good is good. Our first argument here is general. Over a long swath of available data, the worst returns for credit have consistently overlapped with the worst economic growth. Hoping for weaker data is, historically speaking, playing with fire, raising the odds that such weakness isn’t just a blip, and opens the door for much worse outcomes for both the economy and credit. But our second reason is more specific to right now. Central to this idea that bad data would be better for the market is the assumption that central banks would look at any poor data, change their tune and come to the market’s aid by lowering interest rates quickly. I think recent events really challenge that sort of thinking. While the European central bank did lower interest rates earlier this month, it struck a pretty cautious tone about any further easing. And the Federal Reserve actually raised its expected level of inflation and projected rate path on the same day that consumer price inflation in the US came in much lower than expected. Both increased the risk that these central banks are being more backward looking, and will be slow to react to weaker economic data if it materialises. And so, we think, credit investors should be hoping for good data, which would avoid a scenario where backward-looking central banks are too slow to change their tune. I’d note that this is what Morgan Stanley’s economists are forecasting, with expectations that growth is a little over 2 percent this year in the US and a little over 1 percent in the Euro Area for this year. We expect the economic data to hold up, and for that to be the better scenario for credit. If the data turns down, we may need to change our tune. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

28 Juni 20243min

If you're a listener to Thoughts on the Market you may be interested in Season 2 of our podcast: What Should I Do With My Money? ----------------Money is emotional and that can make it difficult to know if we’re making the right decisions. This season, the stakes are high. From prenups to passing a legacy to their children, from affording a dream home to literally wanting to save the planet, our guests get to the heart of what matters to them most and you get answers to some of the questions you might have yourself. No matter where you are with your finances, you don’t have to navigate them alone. Our Financial Advisors show once again that a little guidance can go a long way. Join us to hear how a conversation can turn concern into confidence, hosted by Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s Jamie Roô.-----This material has been prepared for educational purposes only. It does not provide individually tailored investment advice. 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28 Juni 20243min

As the infrastructure needs for artificial intelligence soar, so does the need for financing. Our Chief Fixed Income Strategist talks about the role credit markets can play in providing capital to power the sector.----- 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, today I'll be talking about the role of credit markets in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. It's Thursday, June 27th at 1 pm in New York. Technology diffusion driven by artificial intelligence has been a defining theme for investors over the last few years. Recent developments in generative AI, or GenAI powered by large language models, have the potential to bring transformational changes across the economy. Today, I want to talk about the role of credit markets in this AI revolution. The infrastructure requirements of AI – semi fabs, data centers and the energy resources to power the Gen AI models – are enormous. Our analysts estimate that GenAI power demand will rise rapidly, reaching 224 Trillion Watt hours by 2027 in their base case which is roughly close to Spain's total 2022 power consumption. So, it goes without saying that AI infrastructure will need substantial capex. Early on, much of the AI capex has been funded by a combination of venture capital and retained earnings from cash-rich technology companies; in other words funded by equity capital. As the focus shifts from early innovators and enablers of AI to adopters of AI, these needs are bound to grow and will require more efficient forms of capital. We think that credit markets in various forms – unsecured, secured, securitized and asset-backed – will have a major role to play in this transformation. So far, debt financing has played a relatively small part in funding technology companies, especially AI beneficiaries. The sector has significant capacity to add debt without a material deterioration in their credit metrics. This capacity is also complemented by an investor base with a significant dry powder to absorb incremental issuance, thereby avoiding a demand-supply mismatch. Of course, the story is not that simple. Cash-rich companies may not have a compelling need to access credit markets if the equity market continues to reward redirection of these free cash flows. But then the path of the interest rate markets will also matter, as monetary policy eases, the cost of debt becomes incrementally even more attractive. It’s clearly early innings, but credit markets holistically should play a bigger role as the cycle matures. In addition, as the capex cycle broadens out from enablers to adopters, we note that most sectors are nearly not as cash-rich as the technology sectors. For example, the median cash to debt ratio for the technology sector is over 50 percent, but then for the remaining sectors, it is just 15 percent. So as capital needs driven by these infrastructure needs increase, we expect the reliance on credit markets also to increase. In some ways, this has already begun to happen. The first data center asset backed security was issued in 2018. The market has now grown to over 20 billion outstanding and it is poised for a rapid growth. The bottom line is simply this: As AI driven technology diffusion takes center stage, credit markets, broadly defined, will likely play a growing role. As always, there will be winners and there will be losers. But AI as a theme for credit investors is here to stay. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

27 Juni 20244min

Our Global Chief Economist explains why markets are concerned about uncertainty around the French and US elections, and how their outcomes may affect each economy’s debt load.---- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about elections, and what they might mean for fiscal sustainability.It's Wednesday, June 26th at 10am in New York.Elections have unexpectedly become a key risk in an otherwise positive growth narrative for France this year. And there are a wide range of possible outcomes for the next government.Fiscal sustainability is one key market narrative we have been flagging. And in France, the fiscal position is expected to deteriorate. Our strategists note that the 10-year OAT boon spreads have widened more than 20 basis points. And in their view, further discounts on OATs are likely due to the deficit trajectories in the different political scenarios and heightened political and economic uncertainty.In recent work we've done on developed market government sustainability, we flagged that across DMs, even if fiscal deficits remain steady, interest expense on the debt will continue to rise, pushing up the debt to GDP ratios. Larger deficits would necessarily exacerbate the situation. Austerity is necessary to stabilize or lower the debt to GDP ratios.For France in particular, the maturity profile and forward rates had meant there could be relatively more time for the repricing to happen; but the market reaction to the election has meant higher yields, effectively pulling forward that repricing. Relative to our analysis in the first quarter of 2024, the debt surfacing costs are already higher.The election results have now led to expectations of higher deficits, implying faster rising debt to GDP ratios as well. This combination of higher rates and higher deficits is self-reinforcing. The market will pay close attention to specific policy proposals -- and the coalitions that result from the election.For the US elections, debt sustainability has so far been lower on the list of topics that clients bring up. The elections are expected to be close. In a recent joint note with our US public policy colleagues, we noted four basic scenarios: a Republican sweep; a Democratic sweep; or divided governments with either a Republican or a Democratic president.Our public policy colleagues see very different outcomes across a 10-year time horizon for the deficit, ranging from an increase of [$]1.6 trillion under the Republican sweep scenario to an increase of about $600 billion in the Democratic sweep scenario, and the split government scenario is somewhere in between.Of course, fiscal policy is not the only consideration for debt sustainability. Tariffs could generate some higher revenues, but the adverse hit to GDP means that the denominator of the debt to GDP ratio will fall and push the ratio higher.Our policy colleagues have also flagged a big range of possible immigration policy outcomes. The current positive supply shock to the labor force has allowed for faster GDP growth and consequently, higher revenues. Under the strictest immigration policies, the so-called break-even monthly payrolls flow could fall from a baseline now of just over 200,000 per month to as low as 45,000 per month.Such an outcome would imply lower revenues and lower GDP, meaning both the numerator and the denominator of the debt to GDP ratio would be pushing upward.Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

26 Juni 20243min

Our CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist explains how to make sense of the equity market’s narrow performance, and why stock picking takes on greater importance for investors.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief US Equity Strategist. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about the narrowness in breadth and why that supports our preference for high quality and defensive stocks.It's Tuesday, June 25th at 11:30am in New York.So let’s get after it. I am fond of the saying that the economy is not the stock market, and the stock market is not the economy. Often, a strong economy is not good for stocks, while a soft one can lead to higher equity prices. This latter case is the classic late cycle period in which we find ourselves. More specifically, when the economy is slowing from previous tightening by the Federal Reserve, the equity market starts to get excited about the Fed reversing course, and it looks forward to loosening policy and valuations rise in anticipation. With price/earnings multiples and other valuation metrics now in the top decile, the question is when will valuations matter and begin to fall faster than earnings growth and lead to a meaningful correction?At the stock level, this is already happening as illustrated by the weakest breadth since 1965. In other words, most stocks are seeing valuations fall more than earnings are rising. This is exactly why stock picking has become so important for equity investors to outperform the S&P 500. While this creates a great long and short opportunity, the list of longs has become harder to find and why the momentum in a few stocks continues unabated. This also syncs with our view for the past year that large cap quality is likely to continue to outperform until something material changes in the macro environment. I see three potential candidates to change this seemingly very stable and benign outcome for equity markets.First, inflation and growth reaccelerate in a way that forces the Fed to reconsider rate hikes. Right now, that does not appear likely and why there is virtually no risk of such an outcome priced into either bond or stock markets. Such an outcome would likely lead to a broadening out of the equity rally to areas that have lagged persistently over the past 2 years—areas like small caps, lower quality consumer cyclicals, regional banks and transports. The S&P 500 would likely trade poorly under this scenario as higher rates would potentially weigh on valuations for the big winners. Second, the liquidity picture deteriorates and money flows out of equities. A key risk in this regard relates to the funding of the extraordinary government deficit. A good way to monitor this risk is the term premium in the bond market which remains near zero. Should this change and the term premium rise like last fall, the decline in equities would likely be broad with few stocks doing well. This does not appear to be a concern at the moment given the liquidity provisions still in place.The third possible risk is a growth scare that is substantial enough to turn bad economic data into bad news for equity multiples across the board. This is the most likely risk to upset the apple cart in our view. Under this outcome, large cap quality should continue to do ok on a relative basis, but defensives are likely to do better. The economic growth surprises have been trending lower all year. So far, the S&P 500 has taken these weaker data in stride assuming bad economic data is still good for large cap quality stocks as the market looks forward to rate cuts from the Fed. Meanwhile, weaker indices and stocks have broken down with many now down on the year. The bottom line is that the ongoing policy mix of heavy fiscal spending and tight interest rate policy is crowding out many companies and consumers in a waythat is unsustainable in our view. Investors have correctly recognized this outcome by bidding up the few stocks of the companies that are doing well in this environment. Until the bond market pushes back via higher term premium or growth slows down in a more meaningful way, we expect this narrow market performance to persist. As such, we continue to recommend a barbell of large cap quality growth with defensives while fading cyclicals and avoiding the temptation to play for a true broadening out until the macro regime makes a meaningful shift.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

25 Juni 20244min

Halfway through a historic year for elections around the world, Morgan Stanley’s chief economists assess the impact of recent results on the global economy, and weigh potential effects from key elections to come.----- Transcript -----Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market, and welcome back to the second part of a special two-part episode of the podcast. We've been covering Morgan Stanley's global economic outlook as we look into the third quarter of 2024. In the first part, we covered the twin themes of inflation in central banks. In this part, we're going to look at elections, with my colleagues Ellen Zentner, our Chief US Economist, Jens Eisenschmidt, our Chief Europe Economist, and Chetan Ahya, who is our Chief Asia Economist.It's Monday, June 24th at 10 am in New York.It is astounding if we look around the world just how many elections there have already been this year and how many more there are going to be. We will get to the US, but before we do, Chetan, in Asia, India is one of the most important economies; and in India they recently had elections. Can you just let our listeners know basically what happened and what do you think are the implications for that election for the Indian economy?Chetan Ahya: Yeah Seth. So Definitely there was a big change in India in terms of the political outcome. So the ruling party did not get the full majority and they have had to form a government under a coalition structure. There is a question though, as a result of that, whether the policy shift will happen in India and the government will go back to redistribution instead of focusing on boosting investment and jobs. Well, we think that, you know, there is no change. There is policy continuity. We think that this government is very much aligned in thinking that they want to keep inflation in check and current account deficit in check, i.e. macro stability should be in control. And they still believe that job creation is the way to ensure that the general masses and the bottom 20 per cent see the benefit and then vote for them back again.So, for us, we are not changing our view that this is India's decade. We are still maintaining our growth forecast that India will be achieving 6.5 per cent until 2030, and at the same time as India continues to build this growth rates on a high base, India will be at $8 trillion by 2032. Back to you, Seth.Seth Carpenter: Thanks, Chetan. super interesting. And EM elections have had a lot of surprises. We had South Africa. We had a surprise -- in terms of the margin in the opposite direction of what you said for India -- when it comes to the case of Mexico, where Scheinbaum won, but the majority was even bigger than I think most people were expected.But there are other elections that had some big surprises. Jens, let me come to you. In Europe, we had the European elections, and there were some big surprises there, to say the very least. First, can you just walk us through, what do the European level elections mean, in terms of our outlook? And then, part of the fallout from those surprises was that President Macron in France called for snap elections. What do you think we need to take away from that fact?Jens Eisenschmidt: We have had a look at the manifestos, what is known so far from those that are competing for government in France, say, and I think one of our key takeaways is that might be more fiscal spending. And of course, short run this might get you more growth. But of course, the question is always, what's the price for us to pay? There might be higher interest rates and that in the longer term may be detrimental. So, I think overall we have to wait until we see really and observe the full election outcome.Now, more generally, we had the European elections and we get a lot of questions by clients -- what the implications are here. Now, if you, sort of just look again from very high up, far away, then we see that the coalition that has last time, voted and elected, Ursula von der Leyen, the currently sitting, President of the European Commission. That coalition still stands or commands a majority in the European Parliament post the elections. Just that that majority, of course, is a little bit smaller than before.It's very likely that von der Leyen will have to reach out to either the Greens that were not in the past part of her coalition, voting for her; or the bloc around the Italian Prime Minister Meloni. The implication of it is that we have to see which side the reach out is for – for the consequences for the commission priorities. But I would say from today's perspective, and again giving that there is some logic of averaging here, it's very unlikely to be dramatic changes that we are going to see at the European level.Seth Carpenter: Staying on, on your side of the Atlantic, of course the UK is going to have elections as well. And notably on July 4th, the anniversary of the US independence from Great Britain. I love that timing. What's the story with the UK elections and are they going to change at all, your team's outlook for what goes on in the UK?Jens Eisenschmidt: So on current polls, they were remarkably stable. There seems to be a change in government in the making, say. The Tories, the Conservative Party in the UK, it's very likely to have to give away power to a new labor government. That's essentially what polls currently suggest.Now, we've had a look at both manifestos, and there are differences here and there. Typically, you would think, there's a bit more fiscal spending coming out of one government and the other. But, you know, if you really sort of compare notes and if you also see the constraints that both contenders -- conservative or labor -- would have to work with, it's hard to see a material difference, at least for the growth outlook, from their policies.Again, it's early days. We will have to see what exactly then will be implemented after July 4th. But from today's perspective, it's hardly a game changer.Seth Carpenter: Okay, great, thanks. I want to bring it back to this side of the Atlantic, back to the United States. Ellen, Morgan Stanley Research put out a big piece last week about the US election scenarios. Can you just run us through the key points there, because I will say, everyone around the world looks at the US election and has to take some notice.Ellen Zentner: Ah yes. I love elections. I thought you'd never ask. So, in the US it's not just about Biden versus Trump. The outcome for the Congress matters critically for fiscal outcomes as well. So, broadly for deficits, we see a rank ordering of a Republican sweep leading to the biggest deficit expansion. Then a smaller deficit with a split government because there will not be unity to get things done. And then the smallest deficit comes with a Dem sweep because we do think that tax increases could be meaningful.Seth Carpenter: Okay, whoa. Let me stop you there because it sounds like if we've got this rank ordering of how much the deficit expands, can we just take that and then translate it into a forecast for economic growth? So bigger deficit, more fiscal boost; smaller deficit, less fiscal boost; smallest deficit, sort of weakest growth. Is that the way we should think about this fiscal plan translates into projections of growth?Ellen Zentner: Okay, I wish it were that easy and I know you're asking that because it would definitely poke me a bit. So, there are other policies that are going to matter. So tariffs, for example, and they're likely to differ substantially. So, you know, former President Trump has talked about 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports and 10 per cent tariffs broadly on global imports. And there are specifics that are hard to forecast now. Some of the broader plans might require congressional action; but what we learned from 2018 is that there is some inflationary impulse. But you can have a meaningful adverse hit to the economy from tariffs, and then that tends to have a pull on inflation thereafter. So, you can't just take the fiscal deficit, as a direction for growth.And as I noted earlier, immigration has been a key part of the macro story in the US for the past year. I promised I would come back to that. You know, you've got, wildly different scenarios for immigration, depending on the congressional makeup and depending on who's president, as well. So, if I just take you to the most extreme example. So if you could see, immigration scenario under former president Trump, where he's talked about shutting down the border, and also deporting unauthorized immigrants that are already here. You know, you could damage the potential growth rate of the economy that would be slower.To put it into numbers, the extreme version we published would result in a break even for non-farm payrolls going to 45, 000 from our current estimate of around 250, 000. So that would be a big shift. And I think immigration, rather than just the size of the deficit, is probably going to be one of the bigger things to watch out of the election.Seth Carpenter: So as the saying goes, elections have consequences, not just in the United States, but around the world.All right. Ellen, Chetan, Jens, thank you so much for joining today. And to our listeners, thank you for listening.If you enjoy the show, please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

24 Juni 20249min