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The energy shock is global, but the policy response isn’t uniform. In the second of our two-part roundtable, our economists unpack the forces shaping interest rates across the U.S., Europe and Asia.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----  Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research.   Michael Gapen: I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist.   Jens Eisenschmidt: I'm Jens Eisenschmidt, Chief Europe Economist.  Chetan Ahya: And I’m Chetan Ahya, Chief Asia Economist.   Seth Carpenter: Yesterday, we talked about why global growth is continuing to power on, why investment is playing a larger role, and how that investment cycle is spreading across regions.  Today, we're going to take a deeper dive and think about monetary policy and what's going on.  It's Friday, October 23rd, at 10am New York.  Jens Eisenschmidt: 4pm in Frankfurt.  Chetan Ahya: And 10pm in Hong Kong.  Seth Carpenter: When I look around the world and think about especially developed market central banks, well, they're kind of all tightening at the same time – but maybe for somewhat different reasons.   Let's start with just a really broad policy question. Why are the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan all tightening policy when their economies look so different?   Mike, I'm going to start with you back here in the U.S. with the Fed. How are you thinking about what the Fed is doing right now?  Are they just recalibrating the stance of policy? Or is this a fundamental change where they're trying to rein in growth in the economy?   Michael Gapen: The way I look at it is this is a story about persistent inflation, and I would look at it as a recalibration of policy. I think the majority of participants on the FOMC know the Fed can't pump more oil or get, you know, oil through the Strait of Hormuz. So, it's about leaning against second-round effects.  Inflation is gradually moving lower. They've characterized this as dissatisfaction with the speed of convergence to the target.   So, I think the Fed is tightening based on persistent inflation, and it appears to me to be more about a recalibration than it is about meaningfully tightening policy and leaning into demand.   Seth Carpenter: All right, Jens. Same question coming to you, and I have to say the energy shock is a global shock. So how do you think about what's going on with the tightening of the ECB and the Bank of England?   Jens Eisenschmidt: Yeah. No, I mean, first of all, if you sort of talk about both central banks – and here again, I guess the Fed comparison also matters. The starting point is important. The ECB was the only central bank that got inflation back to target, and so was already well advanced in its sort of rate normalization cycle, had cut back rates to 2 percent – which by most measures is sort of neutral, maybe leaning a little bit towards expansionary side of things.   And so, it was probably easiest for that central bank, when the supply shock came to tighten again, simply by getting a little bit towards the restrictive end of the neutral range, say. I think that is probably what has happened here, more than anything else.  And for the Bank of England, of course, the discussion is a different one. They were running for a long time a relatively restrictive monetary policy. And so there was more scope to wait it out, essentially. A little bit like the Fed, essentially. This is where the similarities come in.   Now, if you look ahead, essentially, it becomes a question of how strong is your economy holding up? And, you know, the strength of that holding up in the face of a certain given energy shock will determine how much of the inflation that you experience today will be inflation of tomorrow, carried to the next period through stronger wage agreements.   I think that's basically the policy problem facing both central banks here. And I guess that in the end results in essentially a resolve to at least gradually further tighten the stance. I think that has to be the expectation. And so, from that perspective, this is where we arrive at essentially a current positioning that is not super hawkish, if you think about it.  So, it's not like we have to gung ho every sequential meeting increase rates. But we see a gradual increase in rates. And so, for instance, for the ECB, we have a meeting around the corner next week. We don't think there will be an increase. But the risks have sort of stacked up and are really to the upside for inflation.  So, it will be very hard to avoid a tightening for the ECB in the December meeting. So that's the gradual pace I was just referring to.   Seth Carpenter: Got it. Ok, Chetan, the developed market central bank in Asia that most people are staring at is the Bank of Japan. So big change there. 25 years of essentially stagnant nominal in GDP growth to now we're on a clear hiking path.   How far do you think the Bank of Japan is likely to go? What's driving it? And how important is this global energy shock to the Bank of Japan's plans?  Chetan Ahya: We expect the BOJ to hike its policy rate twice, first in December and then again in March next year. This compares with market pricing of three more rate hikes. So, what explains our dovish forecast? Well, we think that Japan's inflation has been largely driven by FX weakness and higher commodity prices and not due to demand-side pressures. To elaborate, Japan's real consumption is still one percent below pre-COVID levels. Hence, we think BoJ will avoid taking up more aggressive policy tightening.   Seth Carpenter: So, Mike, let me come back to you for the U.S. We have seen globally a rise in interest rates. The long end of the curve has sold off everywhere. Some of that is being driven by energy prices. We've seen credit spreads in the U.S. start to widen.   Some of that's being driven by hyperscaler debt issuance, among other factors. But I guess what's important is when Chair Warsh first took over the helm of the Fed, his characterization of how restrictive monetary policy and financial conditions were – was not particularly forceful, right? He said it's hard-pressed to say that it's uniformly restrictive.  But the world feels a little bit different now than it did when Chair Warsh took over. So how does the Fed need to react to the fact that longer-term interest rates have sold off and that credit spreads are starting to widen?   Michael Gapen: Financial conditions have tightened. We would characterize financial conditions as, let's call it moderately restrictive.   So, I think the Fed needs to look at that and then ask itself essentially, "Where is this inflation coming from? What inflation are we trying to stop?" I don't think there's a tremendous amount of evidence that points to an overheating labor market. Rates have risen, but long-run inflation expectations remain stable. So, I still think the right answer is to lean against potential second-round effects from the energy price shock. And here, I think that would show up in airfares, apparel, new and used cars, motor vehicles and parts.   We got some evidence in the September inflation report that these other goods prices were firm. We'll see if that continues, and this is an early sign of energy pass-through into other parts of core. But with financial conditions already moderately restrictive, it doesn't suggest they have a tremendous amount of work to do unless there's evidence that AI spending is broadening out to greater labor demand and higher wages. Then it would be a different story.   For now, I think a few more rate hikes – we have two more rate hikes penciled in, and 75 basis points of rate hikes in total – is probably where we think the Fed will be going by March of next year.   Seth Carpenter: Jens, let me turn that to you as well because rates in Europe have also gone up. And importantly, we've seen spreads for French sovereign debt over German debt widen a lot. So, OAT spreads are pretty high. How much has the tightening in financial conditions done the work of the ECB for it? And as a result, is that a reason to maybe expect less in the way of rate hiking than what the market has priced in?  Jens Eisenschmidt: I think that's exactly the debate that I would expect to be raging in the governing council next week. We have already seen indications in the accounts in September that it was brought up. Since then, it hasn't gotten better. So, there is tightening. We had seen Philip Lane coming out essentially saying in very simplistic ways, ‘Well, this is AI. This is good for the U.S. It's not so clear it's as good for Europe. But, you know, rates have increased here too, and so we need to be super careful.’ That this is not representing us with much more tightening than we actually can stomach.  So, to your point, indeed, I think the market is pricing too many rate hikes. We have one more at this stage in December, and that's it.   We have to acknowledge that since we made that change in call, we have seen more inflation and probably also more resiliency than we had thought. So that would push us at the margin to maybe one more in March. But then again, we have seen the tightening at the long end. If that continues, we may very well end up being right with that call without any need to change it. Again, that has to be closely watched. It will very likely depend on the growth outlook in the end.   But yeah, long story short, the market currently prices 3/25. I still think this is too much from the ECB here.  Seth Carpenter: So, Chetan, maybe I’ll wrap up with you because we focused on some of the bigger central banks of the bigger economies. But there are different outcomes across different central banks. Here in the Americas, for example, down south, the Brazilian Central Bank, the BCB, is still easing, a

In the first of a two-part discussion, our roundtable explores how AI investment, trade and consumer spending are sustaining global growth, and what could put that resilience at risk. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----  Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research.  Michael Gapen: I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist.  Jens Eisenschmidt: I'm Jens Eisenschmidt, Chief Europe Economist.  Chetan Ahya: And I'm Chetan Ahya, Chief Asia Economist.  Seth Carpenter: And today, our fourth quarterly economic roundtable discussion is going to try to take a wide-angle view on the global economy – and it has held up despite higher interest rates, higher energy prices, geopolitical uncertainty, you name it.  It's Thursday, October 22nd at 10am in New York.  Jens Eisenschmidt: And 4pm in Frankfurt.  Chetan Ahya: And 10 pm in Hong Kong.  Seth Carpenter: All right then. Let me start with that big question Why has global growth held up better than maybe would have been expected given everything that we've seen ?  Mike, maybe I'll start from the U.S. perspective with you. What do you think has mattered most? What is driving – if I dare use an overused word – the resilience of the economy?  Michael Gapen: Most of us believe AI-related spending is interest rate insensitive and geopolitically insensitive. And certainly, I think the data has borne that out. And in the direct translation of AI hypercaler Capex spending to growth, we find that AI is accounting for 4/10 to 6/10 contribution to growth in any given quarter. You could nudge that a little higher if you think it’s creating productivity, which we do.  And that spending is underpinning asset market appreciation – or certainly has for the past several years. And that is underpinning resilient spending by upper income households.  So, I think in the U.S. the clear answer is AI-related spending, but also its linkage to asset markets and upper-income households.  Seth Carpenter: Jens, let me come to you for the European view. I mean the AI story has been a little bit different in Europe. I think consumer behavior sometimes can differ in Europe than in the United States.  What would you say is the story behind the resilience of economic growth there in Europe?  Jens Eisenschmidt:  It’s similar in the sense that there is a clear element of also of AI-related external demand.  That even in Europe now the phones are ringing, given that we are more typically seen as on the more higher cost end of the spectrum.  So, I think there was clearly in the second quarter data, export-led growth elements related to AI or delivery into that. There was also an element of geopolitical tensions helping some of those producers – say, chemical industry in Germany comes to mind – that would deliver products that would previously be delivered out of the Strait [of Hormuz].  So, that is another element. And then, yeah, the consumer held up better than had expected. Or that you could have expected given the rise in energy prices. So all in all, that got us a relatively solid second quarter print. And we expect this to be more or less repeated also in the third.  Seth Carpenter: Chetan, the export story is pretty important. You've been writing about a big CapEx cycle and big industrial cycle in Asia. So, when you think about the Asia story and why the economic growth held up in spite of the global shocks, how would you characterize that?  Chetan Ahya: Yeah. So, Asia is benefiting from a strong pickup in CapEx, which initially was led by the tech sector, but is now broadening out to energy, defense, and broader industrial investments. Exports are strong, and showing some signs of broadening out from tech to non-tech goods too.  This has meant that the region has faced positive terms of trade situation despite higher oil prices. Higher export prices have boosted corporate profits and in turn government tax revenues, offsetting the fiscal pressures from higher fuel subsidies.  And when you're thinking about higher interest rates that you are seeing globally and also in Asia, what is different in this cycle is that the macro stability indicators are in a good place. Current account surpluses in the region have widened quite significantly. In fact, it is $1.6 trillion or 4.2 percent of GDP.  Also what we have is the private sector balance sheets outside of China are quite healthy.  So, all in all, both higher oil prices and interest rates have not disturbed the CapEx and growth cycle in the region.  Seth Carpenter: Is there a lot of dispersion across sectors, across countries for this cycle that you’re talking about? Can you go a little deeper there?  Chetan Ahya: Yeah. So let me start first with the story on investment versus consumption So initially, the growth story in the region started with a pickup in exports and CapEx. But what we have seen is that this has now broadened out into a dynamic where we see an improvement in the labor market and therefore consumption growth. So, we have this recovery broadening out from exports to CapEx to consumption.  And within the region, when you're thinking about different economies. Initially, we saw very strong growth in Korea and Taiwan. But now we have seen growth being strong in all parts of the region, especially in economies like India, Japan, and also some of the Southeast Asian economies like Malaysia and Singapore.   Seth Carpenter: I want to stay on this broadening theme, Michael.  Is all of the CapEx spending, all the investment spending, by business in the United States, is it just an AI story? Are we seeing any broadening of the investment story in the U.S. beyond AI? Or should we just resign ourselves that the rest of the economy is going to stagnant?  Michael Gapen: No, I do think we are seeing evidence of some broadening out. It is most clear in manufacturing.  So, I do think it points to some broadening out in the AI story beyond the narrow AI story into something that is broader that both Chetan and Jens have referenced about in a multipolar world needing to build out redundancies in supply chain.  Maybe there's some incentive to do some reshoring. So, whether it's a spillover effect from AI or a spillover effect from geopolitics writ large, I do think there's some evidence that we're seeing the broadening out.  I would just caution and say, just remember, manufacturing in the U.S. is relatively small. It's only about 10 percent of output and maybe 10 percent of employment. But nonetheless, it's there. So, it's not just an AI story. I think you can characterize it as a bit broader.  Seth Carpenter: Let me come to you, Jens, on this. We've seen an investment story play out for a while in Europe. There was a lot of discussion about defense especially in Germany –infrastructure especially in Germany.  Is that still an important part of spending in Europe, the investment side of things? And how important is investment relative to household?  Jens Eisenschmidt: Yeah. No, I mean, I think in, in terms of the shares; and GDP shares in spending, you're talking about 50 percent versus 20 percent. So, consumption is the more important one… If you talk about relative expectations, so I think there your question really points at a key component of the forecast. If anything, you could expect maybe some more dampening from here, given that energy prices have increased further, and at some point the consumer will just capitulate. Or at least, need to show some signs of retracement. While investment has so far, in the aggregate at least, not shown any signs of a big revival.  And if anything, this is what we would expect more investment from here – be it related to, you know, a progressive AI build out.  Or be it because we anyway expect some more positive investment dynamics given where we are in the cycle and given that the ECB has decreased rates last year. And at some point, this typically shows up in investment demand.  So, long story short, the relative importance as a growth driver should increase of investments, vis-a-vis consumption. I think that is that is relatively clear. The question is just the magnitude here.  Seth Carpenter: How much do you worry then that not only is investment going to become bigger share of growth? That consumption could weaken even more because energy prices chip away at purchasing power of households? Is that a relevant factor for Europe?  Jens Eisenschmidt: I think that has to be the number one growth worry going forward So essentially, you come down in terms of wage increases from very high level that were reflective of past inflation.  So, the European wage setting process always lags inflation, and so basically today's wage agreements are reflective of yesterday's inflation.  But now we are going above 4 percent, very likely on our forecast. Not an awful lot above 4 percent, but still above.  Then it becomes a question of how long this is going to persist. If you just believe the future curves in energy markets – not long. But then if you look at more details in terms of, for instance, where diesel prices are likely heading, you can become more pessimistic, and ultimately, this is what matters for the consumer. So long story short, big risks here, of course.  Seth Carpenter: All right. So, a consumer that's not exactly pulling its weight leads me back to China. Key economy in the world, one of the biggest economies going. But when it comes to demand, aggregate demand, China has been in this deflationary cycle for a while. The household sector has been pretty soft in terms of its demand.  What are we looking at there in terms of the consumer in China, the demand side of things in China? is that likely to change anytime soon? And can the global economy look to China as a source of extra demand to keep this expansion goi

Can markets absorb this much new debt? Our panel examines strong demand for investment-grade bonds, stress in high-yield debt and the macro risks that could shape the next six to twelve months in credit markets. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----  Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley.  Anish Shah: I'm Anish Shah, Global Head of Debt Capital Markets.  Rehan Latif: I am Rehan Latif, Global Head of Credit Trading.  Samer Oweida: And I'm Samer Oweida, Global Head of Foreign Exchange and Emerging Markets.  Andrew Sheets: Today, a discussion of historical levels of bond issuance and how it could affect the broader markets.  It's Wednesday, October 21st at 9am in New York.  Gentlemen, it's great to talk with you. I think what we're talking about is an issue that really cuts across all parts of Morgan Stanley's businesses, from issuance to credit trading to macro markets and beyond.  And I'd like to get into it, but just quickly to kind of frame where we are. Anish, we are in the midst of a historic investment cycle in AI CapEx. We're in the midst of a very large pickup in M&A activity that I also want to make sure we get into.  But you sit at the intersection of our capital markets businesses. Talk a little bit about what we're seeing in the bond issuance space.  Anish Shah: Sure, Andrew. I look after all of our new issue capital markets business in credit, and that's across the credit spectrum and across geographies. And I'm constantly looking to Rehan for the latest in investor sentiment and how we can deliver the right product for our issuing clients. And to Samer on macro views that impact our clients every day.  We are in the midst of a significant decommoditization of new issue credit markets and a decompression in credit. It's really driven by four important factors.  One is, as you note, unprecedented levels of issuance. Investment grade debt volumes are up almost 25 percent on the year. That's driven by the AI CapEx theme and a resurgence in M&A.  Number two is the rate backdrop has been, to date, pretty constructive for credit. We've seen $100 billion of new cash come into investment grade credit. We've seen new pools of investors drive tremendous new capacity into credit markets, whether it be insurance, capital fueled by annuity investments or other private credit.  We're also seeing an increase in complexity, and that's driven by the AI CapEx cycle and the interconnectedness between hyperscalers, the chip makers, the neo clouds, the data centers, and that's requiring an unprecedented level of innovation in structuring new solutions for issuers.  And the last is the market is grappling with supply-demand dynamics and winners and losers in the AI thematic.  Andrew Sheets: Rehan, that's actually a great place to turn to you because you're on the other side of this. You're focused on can markets absorb all of this supply? And I often kind of hear two narratives.  You know, one is everything is great. You've got record issuance and record supply into the credit markets. And the other is cracks are forming. You're seeing widening of CCC spreads. You're seeing some headlines around some issuers running into more trouble. From your perch, how do you see things?  Rehan Latif: So, Andrew, instead of two, I'll give you three narratives within public credit trading.  One, I agree with Anish. I think first of all, I've got to thank Anish because it's never been busier on the public credit side because of the amount of issuance coming through. But there are, really, three different themes coming through.  One, investment grade has been incredibly strong. The higher quality part of the credit market is benefiting from all this new investor money coming through at these higher rate levels. For the longest period of my 20-year career, 20-plus year career, we were in a zero-rate environment. At current yield levels, investment grade has never looked like a more attractive proposition.  You add in growth in the U.S. and across the rest of the world, the reality is that investment grade looks like a very interesting investment thesis. And I think spreads continue to be appropriately priced for the risk.  On the CCC side of the market, that's where we're seeing real dispersion.  Where we're seeing investors from the distressed community, from the high yield community, really have to figure out how to refinance some of these names. And that's been where the real challenge has been from a credit perspective.  And then obviously, you've got the hyperscalers that have come through in significant wave across many different parts of the capital market.  So, one thing Anish mentioned was the number of different financings that are available to the hyperscalers. So, I do think that given the cash flows that these hyperscalers actually have, you've managed to be able to attract a new investor base to our market as well.  Andrew Sheets: Samar, we just heard that, you know, Anish has never been busier. Rehan has never been busier. There's clearly a very credit-specific story here. But, you know, this is something that I imagine is also top of mind in the macro markets.  You've got all of this supply. You've got AI that's kind of driving the market, but you've also got all these other broader issues around energy and deficits. How do you see the historic wave of credit supply fitting into the macro piece?  Samer Oweida: Well, maybe I'll start by also thanking Anish because our corporate derivative business, where we hedge exposure, whether it's on a deal basis or on a normal course basis for these issuers, has never been busier. And part of that is because of the historic issuance that's been discussed.  But part of that, Andrew, is also about the uncertainty that you mentioned in these markets. And so, this epic wave that we're seeing around hyperscalers and AI is happening at a time where energy prices are high, inflation is sticky, fiscal concerns abound, and there's a lot of uncertainty in the forward.  And so, what we've seen from a behavioral standpoint is clients having much more appetite to engage on these discussions because of the uncertainty and hedge that exposure.  What we've also seen is a lot of re-racking of traditional macro models and how do we think about what is the rate level that the economy can handle? What does that rate level mean for winners and losers by jurisdiction or by sector, as Rehan mentioned earlier?  And we've seen that manifest itself in a lot of the invested decisions that our clients have made over the course of the year, where we've seen capital and engagement go up with names both corporate and sovereign. Where there's a positive commodity story and there's a positive AI hyperscaler story.  And we've seen less investment around the jurisdictions and the names where that story is not the case. And so we're seeing some amount of divergence, but I think also given that the economic background globally, and particularly in the U.S., continues to be strong. We've just seen very high levels of activity coming out of our corporate and sponsors-based businesses.  Andrew Sheets: So, Anish, that brings me to a question I wanted to ask you about – which is, you know, Samer, you mentioned this, really important macro question is: at what point do higher rates slow down activity?  And yet, so far, activity's still been very solid, and it's not just AI. We've also seen a lot of strategic activity, a lot of M&A activity. I would love for you to take us inside the conversations that you're having with these companies – and how they're thinking about the environment. How much these current levels of interest rates are impacting their decision-making?  Anish Shah: Andrew, you could probably break that question down into two pieces. One is in the AI ecosystem, where, you know, certainly there's a lot of optimism on the return on these investments. And so, sitting in the shoes of a hyperscaler or a data center developer or a chip maker, there's a lot of optimism that – notwithstanding the current higher rate environment, that the long-term return on these investments is going to be very, very attractive.  And so, we're seeing a relative level of insensitivity on rates from the issuer's perspective in accessing capital. The first wave of all of the AI CapEx has predominantly been in the investment-grade bond market. That's the deepest, most liquid, fastest way to raise capital and speed.  Now you're seeing some of these companies diversify into different currencies and different products, and that's been a really healthy technical for the markets. From an M&A context, I think a lot of the resurgence in activity is driven by the fact that there's a meeting of the minds in terms of valuation.  So, for the first time in many years, we're seeing large-scaled sponsor private equity-owned assets come to market and be acquired by an investment-grade corporate strategic. Yes, they are borrowing at higher rates than they would have a few years ago. But the view is that they're able to acquire these assets at an appropriate valuation, and it makes long-term strategic sense, and we're seeing just a big pickup in that activity.  I think that also has another implication for credit markets, which is some of these assets that have been long held by private equity sponsors had multi-billion dollar debt complexes that are going to be repaid as part of these transactions.  That's a recycling of credit. That's going to free up some capacity in the leverage finance markets as well. Andrew Sheets: And yeah, Rehan, how do you think about that? Because, you know, again, we have these big macro forces of AI CapEx, and then these very micro company-specific stories around M&A. How do you see that impacting your backdrop?  Rehan Latif: Within credit, the biggest driver is alw

With AI startups scaling at record speed, our analysts Sabrina Hao, Adam Wood and Brian Nowak share takeaways from Morgan Stanley's Spark Conference on AI returns, competitive moats and implications for public markets.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----    Sabrina Hao: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Sabrina Hao, Morgan Stanley's AI and Tech Thematic Equity Strategist.  Adam Wood: And I'm Adam Wood, Head of U.S. Software Research at Morgan Stanley.  Brian Nowak: And I'm Brian Nowak, Head of U.S. Internet Research.  Sabrina Hao: Today, what private companies are telling us about the AI opportunity and what it means for public markets.  It's Tuesday, October 20th, at 10am in New York.  Last week, we were at our Spark Private Company conference in California, bringing together more than a hundred startups across software, robotics, AI infrastructure, and beyond. There was even a company helping to manufacture pharmaceuticals in space.  It was a really interesting week to be at the conference given everything that was happening in the market. But really, we came away feeling even more positive about the AI cycle.  While public market investors are waiting for returns to justify trillions of dollars in AI spending, we're already seeing that pay off in private markets. AI demand is real, companies are delivering tangible returns for customers, and startups are scaling faster than ever.  Adam, let's start with growth. We heard from startups scaling at extraordinary speeds. One was approaching [$] 4 billion in annual recurring revenue in two years, another reaching a billion in under a year.  What really stood out to you about the pace of AI adoption, and why aren't we necessarily seeing that same growth at established software companies?  Adam Wood: So yeah, absolutely, the pace was remarkable. And clearly one of the standouts from the conference when we used to discuss how quickly a company could get to a $1 billion so-called unicorn valuation. And now we're discussing how quickly they can get to a unicorn revenue run rate of a billion dollars, which for me is quite incredible.  But I think I wouldn't make the debate simply about private versus public companies. I'd make the distinction between two different types of software.  I think we have to make a distinction between largely coding and inference tools. There were a number of coding and inference software companies at the conference, and application software. And I think there's a big difference in terms of time and complexity to bring these products to market.  I think the coding and inference, which tends to be the building blocks, as I would call them, underneath the application layer, they can be constructed much more quickly. And I think because we can adopt when we're still building bespoke, which I think is a lot of the phase we're in today, we're still building bespoke software rather than buying off the shelf. They can be adopted earlier as well.  So, we've got faster time to build and faster time to adopt by companies. So, I think it's natural you can see very fast growth in those types of businesses very quickly.  I think in the application landscape, it's a little bit different because those applications have to deliver complete business solutions for customers. In finance and customer service, that means integrating data, understanding workflows, and putting controls in place.  There's much more to build and much more to implement, and generally, the adoption of those tools takes place a little bit later. After we've gone from the bespoke phase where companies are building themselves, we go to a phase where companies see that there are off-the-shelf packages that are available, that companies have built out.  So, I think it's both a complexity of build debate and also, a time in terms of where we are in the software adoption cycle.  The second thing I'd say is, you know, in public software companies that have a big incumbent existing business, sometimes there can be that big incumbent business that's not growing very quickly. And a very fast-growing AI business in there as well. And that very fast AI growth business can be hidden a little bit by that large public software company that exists.  So, I don't think it's as straightforward as just saying, you know, private's growing very quickly, public not. I think there's a couple of layers of complexity in there in terms of what type of software you're dealing with. And then how big the existing kind of business is in a software company and what is kind of existing software growing a little bit less quickly. And then the AI bit that could potentially be growing very fast.  Sabrina Hao: Absolutely. It makes a ton of sense. Maybe on this theme of full stack solutions, you know, Brian, we heard about the shift from AI assistants to agents that can actually execute work. You've done a lot of work on this, both across consumer and enterprise.  What did you learn about how quickly agents are advancing? And how does it shape the outlook for the internet names that you cover?  Brian Nowak: This is a very exciting time for agentic adoption on both the consumer side and the enterprise side. You know, we've sized potential addressable markets of $30 to $40 trillion of spend on both the consumer side and the enterprise side that we think can be addressed by agentic tools. On the consumer side, people are shopping, they are planning their travel, they're planning their holiday shopping. On the enterprise side, we're seeing both vertical specific agents start to emerge. So, agents within the legal area or agents within the healthcare area. And then we're also seeing broad-based agents from some of the larger private companies also start to bud through.  So, there is a smattering of agents that are popping through. On the consumer side, Muse is your early leader, and we do expect more to come in 2027. And then I think on the enterprise side, they're both vertical specific as well as broader based agents expected to grow.  Sabrina Hao: Agents really raise an important question around disruption. Maybe for Adam, you've written about the moat and the journey in software. It's not just about if a company has a competitive advantage, but how it navigates that transition to an AI-driven world.  Did Spark change your thinking about which software incumbents are best positioned to defend their businesses or capture new growth?  Adam Wood: So, I think Spark really confirmed a lot of our views on that moat and journey framework that we've put forward. The moat protecting the existing business that you have and the journey turning AI into new growth opportunities. And in some ways, the deeper the moat for businesses, the longer that journey can be.  An incumbent embedded in complex mission-critical workflows is hard to replace because of the data integrations and customer trust it has by definition. But those same requirements can make introducing AI into its platform more demanding. You can't compromise the reliability of that work.  So that's why we've separated the durability of the business from the speed of its AI transition.  For some of the coding inference businesses we heard from – again, these incredibly fast run rate, fast growth businesses, the monetization has obviously moved very, very quickly. And I think there the investor debate's going to be a little bit the opposite way around. How durable and how big a competitive advantage have these companies built on that very fast-growing revenue base?  And that's not to say these businesses can't have moats. They can. You know, performance, model customization, and integration can create real differentiation. But I think there is a big difference to be made between rapid growth and defensibility.  And, you know, to give a couple of examples here in terms of the moat that some of these AI native vertical and business software companies are leveraging. You know, there's a legal AI company that's hiring former lawyers to become forward deployed lawyers.  We had forward deployed engineers, now we've got forward deployed lawyers. But the reason there is they bring that understanding of legal workflows to the product and its implementation.  So, the value isn't just access to the model. It's making the model and the technology work in the customer's business and understanding in depth those business workflows.  Sabrina Hao: And we've talked about this theme of AI adopters, and really what we need to get this trade to work are those quantifiable benefits from AI. So open weights are a key part of that.  Maybe to pull on another thread, and you, kind of, alluded to this, the models themselves are increasingly becoming table stakes rather than moats. And the value is shifting to everything around the model – whether that's your data, your workflows, the tools that make AI useful.  So where did you see this most clearly at Spark? And does it change your view on where durable value will accrue in software?  Adam Wood: So again, I mean, I think I'd come back to the growing importance of open weight models. I mean, it was a recurring theme at the conference. Almost every company spoke to us and spoke to, you know, the implementation. And again, it reinforces that view of a multi-model world.  You’ve got the inference companies talking about bringing down the costs of using the models. Again, that diffusion concept we talk about. At the application layer, a legal software company said it benchmarks 18 models across 200 criteria to decide which model should run the task. So, you know, you're getting incredible gains in efficiency.  I think there are two implications for public software vendors. I think, you know, first of all, there's an opportunity here for software companies to help their customers with orchestration. So, there's going to be a layer around how do we get the right task to the

Higher rates can take time to filter through the economy, making their full impact difficult to judge. Arunima Sinha from our U.S. and Global Economics teams considers where the pressure may emerge next and how policymakers could navigate the competing risks. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----  Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Arunima Sinha, from the Morgan Stanley’s U.S. and Global Economics teams.  Today, I'll talk about what rising rates mean for economic activity, inflation, and the policy path.   It’s Monday, October 19th, at 10am in New York.  The FOMC raised rates in September. But expectations for future hikes remain volatile. Within hours of the latest CPI print, markets round-tripped, pushing the probability to even for an October hike before retreating.  Now, consistent with our baseline forecast, the market assigns December the highest likelihood for the next hike. But moves further along the U.S. curve matter even more; notably the 10-year yield shifted.  One question that arises, taking a step back is – how much we should worry that broad-based inflation upside means tighter policy is required to push down inflation and, therefore, growth? Or have financial conditions tightened enough on their own that the central bank has less, not more work to do?  The calibration of monetary policy has always been difficult, and now it is becoming urgent. Economists try to put the level of interest rates into the context of where they stand relative to the economy's natural rate. Stronger productivity growth and investment demand should mean a higher natural rate, so a given level of rates is less restrictive. The rise in long-term treasury yields alongside still firm growth and earnings expectations is an indication that the neutral rate may indeed be higher. When yields rise because growth prospects are improving, expected returns rise and the demand for capital strengthens. In that setting, higher rates are not necessarily contractionary. But there is a less benign alternative.  Yields have also risen because inflation has been hot, fiscal concerns are intensifying, and investors are demanding more compensation for holding duration. The question that Chair Warsh has posed – are financial conditions restrictive – is starting to get a different answer.  Calibration will be key to how the economy evolves. For the U.S. so far, even the most recent upside inflation surprise pointed to resilient demand rather than energy-driven stagflation. The simple explanation is that many firms still see returns well above their cost of capital. Recent work from our U.S. economics team supports such a view.  Where there may be a contrast is at the sector level, and that seems to be becoming more apparent. If activity is concentrated in sectors driven by innovation, productivity, and strategic investment, the economy may be less rate sensitive than in past cycles.  Calibrating policy amid these opposing forces is no easy task. The fact that we're seeing the biggest spread widening in the lowest quality part of the credit spectrum and the fact that housing activity is at recessionary levels are some tells in the U.S. that policy and financial conditions are restrictive.  The signs of tighter financial conditions are somewhat more visible in Europe, in part because the AI CapEx spend is less of a factor. Growth has been resilient, but not sufficiently so to offset rising fiscal concerns from higher rates.  The French OAT sell-off shows how quickly the balance of risks shifts. Globally, financial conditions are introducing tougher questions to the macro landscape.  Until recently, the economy's message had been clear. Higher rates were restraining some sectors, but without meaningfully altering the expansion's trajectory. As long as expected returns rise alongside borrowing costs, then yields can remain high – without becoming decisively restrictive. But as our rate strategy colleagues have noted, inflationary pressures have pushed up real rates, not break evens.  So, the market is telling us that policy is getting tighter to restrain growth and eventually pull-down inflation. The latest inflation print in the U.S. reinforces this debate. Are financial conditions restrictive? With several catalysts ahead, Q3 earnings, hyperscaler CapEx credit spread widening, and U.S. elections, the Fed meeting coming up, markets will need to shift to assessing growth risks as central banks try to recalibrate.  Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our ABS Strategist Carolyn Campbell explains how rising borrowing costs are slowing the AI data center boom and what could drive a rebound in financing. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----     Carolyn Campbell: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Carolyn Campbell, Morgan Stanley's Asset-Backed Securities Strategist. Today, why the AI boom is running into an unexpected obstacle: the cost of borrowing money. It's Friday, October 16th, at 10am in New York. Demand for data center facilities is booming. Yet even as companies race to build more capacity, the financing for them is becoming increasingly expensive. And that tension is creating an interesting story in credit markets. Since January, five-year Treasury rates have climbed more than one percentage point, and spreads for data center assets have also gone wider. At the beginning of 2026, the highest-rated data center bonds offered yields below 5 percent. Today, similar bonds are yielding closer to 7 percent, and that increase matters enormously for companies trying to finance multi-billion-dollar facilities. Many operators turn to the securitized credit markets to raise money. Essentially, they issue bonds backed by the income generated by their data centers. By the time these bonds are issued, construction on the data center is complete, the power is secured, and the rent is already being paid. So, on the one hand, cash flows are stabilized – but there is a catch. These facilities often sign long-term leases well before they seek financing in the securitized credit market. By the time they're ready to issue these bonds, rental income is already locked in. And so, when interest rates rise quickly, as we've seen this year, and these borrowing costs increase, revenues aren't necessarily keeping pace. Our analysis suggests that when borrowing costs approach 8 percent, issuing these bonds becomes significantly more challenging under these current financing terms. And we're already seeing the effects in the market. So far in 2026, data center operators have issued around [$] 15 billion in ABS and another [$] 7 billion in the CMBS markets. That's roughly in line with last year's pace, but it's below what we'd expect given the extraordinary growth in data center demand this year. Still, we believe the slowdown in supply is temporary. Our forecast suggests that U.S. data center power capacity could grow from roughly 60 gigawatts today to 150 gigawatts by 2028; although there are some constraints on power availability that could leave capacity 30 percent to 40 percent below these projections. Regardless, much of the lease capacity that comes online will require debt financing, and these operators have ambitious growth plans. So, they have some options to navigate these higher rate environments. They might borrow less against their properties. They might accept lower investment returns in the near term. Or they can turn to different credit channels that offer more flexible financing structures. So, where does this leave the market? To take into account the higher rate environment, we've lowered our forecast slightly for 2026 and 2027 for securitized credit data center issuance. But the amount of lease capacity that's set to come online in 2028 is so high that we've actually held those numbers steady. All told, we now expect around a [$] 120 to a [$] 150 billion of supply over the next couple of years. That's substantial financing activity, even with the higher interest rates creating near-term challenges. The higher cost of borrowing may slow the pace of data center financing for now, but the scale of the build-out ahead suggests that this market still has plenty of room to grow. And there are pockets within the market that we do like. We've talked a lot about the hyperscaler data centers, which are big campuses leased to one or two hyperscaler tenants, often with 10- or 15-year leases. But the other part of the market, the colocation data center market, is where we see a lot of value today. These campuses have many different types of tenants, many different industries represented, and they often have shorter leases. Given the sharp increase in data center rental rates and vacancy rates around 1 percent, these data center operators are more quickly able to monetize the changes that we're seeing in the industry. That flexibility could prove particularly valuable when borrowing costs remain elevated. 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.

Our Chief Latin America Equity Strategist Nikolaj Lippmann explains why Brazil’s election, the cost of capital, AI investment and geopolitics could help unlock a new era of growth across Latin America. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----     Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Nikolaj Lippmann, Morgan Stanley's Chief Latin America Equity Strategist.  Today – why Brazil could be the missing piece of what we call LatAm Spring, and what AI has to do with it.  It’s Thursday, October 15th, at 10am in New York. Brazilian equities rallied sharply last week after a surprising first-round presidential election result. Flávio Bolsonaro finished ahead of President Lula, setting up a runoff later this month. The outcome remains uncertain. But for investors, I think there’s a bigger question. Can Brazil approach a policy shift that unlocks something the country has lacked for years: investment.  We've long argued that Latin America is moving from a consumption-led economy towards an investment-led cycle, thanks to: 1. Changing geopolitics; 2. investment-friendly policies; and 3. The potential for lower interest rates. What's more, this fits into the framework of the AI CapEx cycle, driving the global and especially the U.S. economy that has moved from consumption to CapEx, as argued by Mike Gapen, our U.S. economist. We're already seeing signs of this LatAm Spring in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia. Brazil could be the largest missing piece. And there are three reasons why.  First, the cost of capital. Brazil remains one of the world's most expensive places to invest. High government debt and elevated interest rates have made fixed income investment more attractive than equities or entrepreneurial risk-taking. But credible fiscal reform could change that equation. Lower government spending could reduce borrowing costs, strengthen the currency, and encourage private investment. Which means capital could shift from sitting in fixed-income assets toward funding growth.  Second, AI. AI might seem unrelated to Brazilian politics, but we see an important connection. Our global framework suggests that annual capital spending could rise from roughly $2.5 trillion to about $5 trillion - $6 trillion as companies build out global AI infrastructure. And Latin America has a critical role to play.  Data centers need electricity. Electricity requires energy infrastructure. And the infrastructure requires copper, lithium, and other critical minerals. Latin America as a whole supplies roughly 10 percent of the world's energy, holds about 20 percent of global energy reserves, about 30 percent of global copper, and approximately 60 percent of the world's lithium resources.  So, we've argued that Brazil and Argentina look increasingly like Texas, with exports of energy and of agriculture. And one other area around politics where Brazilians could perhaps learn or be inspired from peer Latin American countries and gather some inspiration from Texas could be around deregulation. For Brazil, lower interest rates and greater policy credibility could make participating in this investment boom considerably easier.  And that brings me to the third factor: geopolitics. Brazil has strengthened its economic ties with the East, while remaining deeply connected to Western capital markets and U.S. technology. A more balanced relationship could improve access to capital markets and support long-term investments. Of course, an election result alone doesn't guarantee change. Fiscal discipline, policy execution, and global financing conditions remain critical. Higher U.S. Treasury yields are an especially important risk for a region carrying substantial debt.  But consider what's already happening elsewhere. Mexico contributes hardware to the AI supply chain. Chile is rebuilding its investment pipeline. And Peru is benefiting from mining activity. Argentina is attracting capital after significant policy changes.  As Latin America's largest economy, Brazil could have substantial regional implications if it moves in the same direction. That's ultimately our LatAm Spring thesis: a shift away from consumption toward investment, entrepreneurship, and capital formation.  There's still a long road ahead, but Brazil could be the most important test of whether that spring truly takes hold. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

The UK budget arrives later this month amid competing predictions about growth, inflation and public finances. Andrew Sheets and Bruna Skarica examine how the country’s economy defies expectations.  Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----    Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Bruna Skarica: And I'm Bruna Skarica, Morgan Stanley's Chief UK Economist.  Andrew Sheets: Today, the UK makes a budget. Why it matters? And more generally, what we've gotten right and wrong about the country.  It's Wednesday, October 14th, at 2pm in London.  Bruna, it's great to be here talking with you, and I'd like to get into a bigger discussion on the UK and what we've gotten right and wrong about the direction of the country this year. But more immediately, it has a very big event coming up.  What is the budget, and why is there so much focus on it?  Bruna Skarica: The budget is the UK's key fiscal event. It is the time of year when the Chancellor receives a refresh of economic forecasts and decides whether he needs to respond to these, whether there's any spending cuts or increases that are required, and whether there's any tax hikes or potentially tax cuts that are required too. All with the view of ensuring fiscal consolidation and executing on what is a self-imposed fiscal framework.  Here in the UK, the main target for the Treasury is to achieve current budget balance in year three of the forecast. The fiscal watchdog forecasts five years of economic variables, and the idea is, by the third year, we ought to be spending outside of investment expenditure as much as we're receiving in tax receipts.  So, all of that happens once a year in the budget.  Andrew Sheets: Now, I might just stop you there [be]cause in the context of these other budget pictures that we see around the world – the U.S. is running a large budget deficit, France is running a large budget deficit, Japan's increasing its budget deficit. That actually seems like a quite ambitious goal within the next three years; to balance that outside of the interest expenses.  Can you just talk maybe a little bit more about that process and the thinking behind it?  Bruna Skarica: Yeah, sure. The idea really is to ensure that over the next five years, not only do we get the current budget balanced while allowing for borrowing for investment, which is, of course, a favorable way to borrow because it boosts growth.  But also, that within the five-year period, we're able to get debt-to-GDP ratio down. In order for that to happen, we need to be running a primary surplus around 1.5 percent of GDP.  Now, very often in UK macro, we tend to look at three-year forecasts, five-year forecasts. We talk about medium-term headrooms. But I think it's important here to take stock of where we are at this moment in time.  We think that in this fiscal year, [20]26-[20]27, primary deficit – our entire expenditure outside debt servicing costs minus tax receipts – we see that at just under 1 percent of GDP. The IMF is a little bit above 1 percent of GDP for UK. But for example, the IMF sees French primary deficit at 2.9 percent this year, with the U.S. measure forecast at 4.9 percent.  So already, UK has actually made a lot of progress in its consolidation path.  Andrew Sheets: And Bruna, talking about this announcement specifically, could you maybe talk about just one or two items that you'd be on the watch for as potential surprises? Or decisions that the market is really focused on?  Bruna Skarica: Sure. So, we do know that the Treasury is looking at ways of alleviating some of the pressures stemming from higher inflation, higher energy inflation in particular. So, the scale of support that will be provided to households and the scale of reduction in headline inflation, I do think will be in focus on the day.  We're expecting a relatively low-key budget, so the scale of measures at around £10 billion, which is much more moderate than what we saw in October 2024 and in November 2025.  However, we do think there is scope for some, let's say, higher level announcements. For example, Prime Minister Burnham is particularly focused on devolution in the UK, decentralization. And there might be a roadmap ahead for how different mayors and different regions in the UK get to keep their portion of income tax revenues and what they might do with it in order to boost regional growth.  UK does stand out as the country in G7 space that has the most centralized fiscal system, and this might start to be changed from this fiscal event onwards.  Andrew Sheets: Okay, so now I'd like to take a step back and do a little marking to market.  You know, you and I on this program, a couple of different times this year, have been talking about the UK, and those conversations have generally been upbeat. I think both of us were of the view that the UK could actually be a bit better of a story than expected. And maybe we start with the good news.  What do you think has been going right?  Bruna Skarica: So, for one, growth has outperformed in the first half of the year. In line with our long-standing thesis that UK ought to be a beneficiary of the global AI boom, the main driver of the upside surprise has been the tech sector. It's running at 8 percent year-on-year, this year.  We have also seen a bit stronger consumer spending growth than anticipated. And again, this reflects, we think, our long-standing thesis on fairly clean household. But also corporate balance sheets, I should mention, that tend to provide a fairly big buffer in one of energy shocks.  UK consumers have elevated savings, also elevated savings stocks, and so in energy shocks such as the one we've seen in the first half of the year, perhaps there is some reduction in desired level of savings, which allows consumers to support their spending habits.  All of this means that this year we see UK growth at 1.3 percent. Now, our U.S. colleagues are looking for 2.3 percent. Still, U.S. growth looks relatively stronger than any European country, including the UK.  However, I would say that 1.3 percent is about 30 basis points higher than where we were a couple of months ago when the energy shock started, so it is important to take that into account.  Andrew Sheets: And I'd also note that UK stocks are up about 10 percent this year, and its currency, the pound, is materially outperformed the euro or the Japanese yen.  But Bruna, I think it's pretty safe to say that sentiment towards the UK feels pretty downbeat. I think it's probably gotten worse as the year has gone on.  So, what's gone wrong and what's been worse than we were expecting?  Bruna Skarica: Yeah. So, while I do think that in the U.S. there is a lot of focus on the benefits from the AI boom and the AI build-out, in Europe, we're still waiting to see the sentiment shift towards how much growth and potential growth in particular can benefit from adopting AI.  We're more constructive, I would say, than probably the average forecaster here. We're pointing to healthy productivity growth performance in the UK private sector, printing productivity growth at 1.8 percent; whereas in the U.S. this figure is a bit above 2 percent over the second quarter this year. So, not too different, I would say.  So, I think the pessimism around potential GDP growth is really what's driving the view that whenever an external energy shock tends to hit, such as the one we've seen this year with higher oil and natural gas prices, it'll be embedded in the economy for a longer period of time. Because ultimately a spare capacity is very tight. And so businesses and consumers will try and preserve their real purchasing power, and inflation will remain elevated for a longer period of time.  Again, we tend to be a bit more constructive on this. We think the economy has enough spare capacity for this energy shock to come and go without material adjustments in the bank rate. We're expecting two hikes. But the market is still pricing four hikes. And certainly in conversations with investors, we are more and more talking about the scenarios in which these could be delivered.  So that, of course, means higher gilt yields, which means higher debt servicing costs, and that overall, I do think tends to dampen sentiment.  Andrew Sheets: Well, Bruna, a lot to watch in the days and weeks ahead. And thank you so much for taking the time.  Bruna Skarica: Thank you, Andrew.  Andrew Sheets: And thank you as always for listening. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you hear us. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Our Head of Asia Credit Strategy Kelvin Pang explains why investors would benefit from a broader fixed income market in Asia, with opportunities across more countries, local-currency credit and dollar-denominated bonds. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----  Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Kelvin Pang, Head of Asia Credit Strategy [at] Morgan Stanley.  Today – why the challenge in Asia fixed income may not be the region at all, but the way investors have traditionally looked at it.  It’s Tuesday, October 13th at 8am in Hong Kong. Picture this. You’re shopping in a supermarket. As you walk down the aisles, you notice half of them are off limits. It’s unexpected.  Something similar has happened in Asia fixed income. The region’s fundamentals remain supportive, but the traditional investment universe has become increasingly constrained.  The pressure began in early 2023, when U.S. policy rates rose above those in much of Asia for the first time since before the Global Financial Crisis. The environment that had supported Asian bond markets for years turned upside down.  Consider Asia-dollar credit. Issuers have increasingly turned to cheaper local-currency financing, which is shrinking dollar-bond supply. Asia-dollar credit is now on track for a fifth straight year of negative net supply. At the same time, investment-grade spreads have tightened to 55 basis points. That makes Asia investment-grade credit the most tightly valued major credit market globally.  And investors have taken notice of this. Assets in dedicated Asia credit and high-yield funds have fallen 62 percent from their 2021 peak – from roughly $75 billion USD to around $29 billion USD.  But we feel Asia itself is not the problem. In fact, Asia Pacific nominal GDP could rise from $41 trillion USD in 2025 to [$]54 trillion by 2031. That would account [for] roughly one-third of global nominal GDP growth over that period.  And most importantly investment is also accelerating. Asia’s capital spending could rise from $11 trillion to [$]16 trillion by 2030. That would mark the strongest industrial cycle since the mid-2000s. And we think this extends well beyond AI, with energy, defense, and broader industrial investment all playing major roles.  The key issue here is how investors have traditionally looked at Asia. They basically need a bigger map.  That broader map is what we call APAC fixed income. Traditional Asia fixed income has largely focused on U.S.-dollar credit and local-currency government bonds across emerging Asia. APAC fixed income adds convertible bonds and local-currency corporate credit. It also brings Japan and Australia into the mix.  So, what’s the advantage of this broader map? You see, each of these pieces behaves differently. Convertible bonds let investors participate in regional growth through their equity link. APAC dollar credit plays a more defensive role, with a mostly investment-grade, U.S.-dollar-denominated profile. Local-currency rates provide exposure to interest rates, currencies and the economic cycle. At the same time, local-currency corporate credit broadens credit and sector exposure.  Together, they create a more flexible mix of risks across changing economic conditions. For example, when growth and inflation rise together, convertible bonds can benefit from their equity link. In a recession, currency-hedged local bonds can benefit from falling rates while limiting foreign-exchange risk. During stagflation, dollar credit can offer more defensive characteristics.  Our portfolio analysis since 2023 suggests a diversified APAC fixed-income portfolio could target a 7.5 percent return with a vol[atility] of roughly 4 percent, depending on allocation constraints. Investors also increasingly need to manage currency exposure as the dollar cycle shifts.  For years, investors could navigate Asian bonds with a relatively narrow toolkit. Today’s market demands more flexibility. The opportunity in Asia has not disappeared. The better question may be whether investors are looking at enough of it.  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.

Energy costs are a key election issue and AI data centers are adding to the debate. Our Head of Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore looks at policy discussions in Washington that could determine how the U.S. powers its next technological boom. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----    Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley.  Today, I'll discuss the growing energy demands of AI and what the government can do in response.  It's Monday, October 12th at 10am in New York.  Markets and policymakers are preparing for a potentially important debate following the November elections. The future of American energy infrastructure. And at the center of that debate is an increasingly urgent question: How can the U.S. build enough power infrastructure to support the AI investment cycle – without passing the costs on to everyday electricity consumers?  Late last month, lawmakers in Congress introduced the bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act. That legislation represents a significant effort to reform federal permitting. But importantly, it also includes provisions that require data centers to cover the transmission costs associated with their projects.  We think that's a notable development, particularly as we think about the legislative agenda after the November elections. Of course, the path forward still remains uncertain given substantial policy differences and a limited legislative calendar after the elections.  But why might this matter for markets?  Well, first, it's worth considering the scale of the energy challenge. My colleague Stephen Byrd and his team recently updated their projections for the U.S. data center power shortfall. They now see a potential 57-gigawatt gap through 2028, and that's before accounting for new solutions that could accelerate access to power. That's up from their previous estimate of 38-gigawatts.  And that's why the permitting proposal is so important. There are two elements that I'd highlight.  First is the effort to accelerate infrastructure development. The bill would reform federal environmental reviews and provide greater certainty for projects that have already received approvals. We think that can help reduce delays and uncertainty around new energy projects, although permitting reform alone won't resolve constraints involving equipment, labor, or grid capacity.  The second element is the growing focus on who pays for the infrastructure, and here the proposal actually builds on an existing policy initiative. Earlier this year, a number of hyperscalers signed on to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.  That's a voluntary agreement under which companies commit to securing the electricity needed for their data centers and pay for associated power infrastructure upgrades rather than passing the costs on to residential consumers. The pledge was subsequently expanded to include a broader group of utilities, developers, and state participants.  Now, what's different about the permitting reform bill is its potential shift from voluntary commitments toward federal requirements. In particular, the proposal would require data centers to cover their associated transmission costs.  That's an area where we think policymakers from both parties appear to share concerns about electricity affordability, even though they may disagree over the broader approach to energy policy. Looking beyond the elections, we think that creates two related policy catalysts for investors to watch.  The first is whether Congress can reach an agreement on permitting reform that helps accelerate the construction of energy infrastructure. And second, whether lawmakers move to establish a more formal cost-sharing requirement for data centers.  The eventual policy mix, we think, could influence both the timing and the economics of new projects. Faster approvals could make some investments more attractive. But requiring developers to absorb additional transmission costs could also change where projects are built and which power solutions they pursue. A changing policy framework could also reinforce the importance of alternatives.  Of course, legislation is far from guaranteed. The elections will shape the political environment in which these negotiations continue, and any final agreement could differ substantially from the current proposal.  But stepping back, I think there's a broader takeaway.  For much of the AI investment cycle, the focus has been on the pace of technological innovation and capital spending. Increasingly, though, policy decisions around electricity infrastructure, permitting, and affordability could become just as important in determining how quickly that investment translates into operational capacity.  The permitting bill is an early indication of how D.C. may approach those challenges after the elections. And for investors, the central question may be less about how much companies are willing to spend on AI and more about how quickly and at what cost they can secure the power needed to support it.  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.

Markets have remained resilient despite the prospect of higher-for-longer rates. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets considers the risks building beneath the surface. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, exploring further the question that seems to be on everyone's mind: At what point do higher rates become a problem for markets? It's Friday, October 9th, at 2pm in London. We recently hosted Morgan Stanley's ninth annual European Credit Conference here in London. Fifty companies, over a thousand investors, and to some extent, one dominating question. The market has been impressively resilient this year – but as yields rise, at what point does this change? I think a good place to start with this question is whether the current level of interest rates are obviously wrong. And I don't think it's clear that they are. Growth in the U.S., Europe, and Asia remains surprisingly robust and has for a lot of this year. Meanwhile, inflation across regions is still generally above central bank targets. Too high, and a sign that conditions are more likely too hot than too cold. That's the opposite of what the wrong level of rates would imply – as rates that were too high would be curtailing activity and pushing inflation down below target. Thanks in part to the scale of AI spending and how insensitive the spending has been to the level of interest rates; we're just not seeing this. I think the yield curve is also confirming this message that the level of rates for now is okay. In an environment where the market thinks that central banks have raised rates too much, it will often so-call invert the yield curve. Pushing short-term interest rates above longer-term ones on the belief that rates that are too high today will need to be lowered when conditions weaken in the future. We're not seeing that, and that is, I think, a pretty important indicator. At the risk of being pedantic, I think there's also the premise of the question around resilience. At one level, without a doubt, markets have been impressively solid given the large rise in yields this year. U.S. and European stocks have been posting double-digit gains. Credit spreads, a measure of risk premium, sit near multi-decade lows. But under the surface, that resilience isn't so apparent. Spreads on the lowest-rated credits, so-called triple CCCs, have increased significantly this year across both the U.S. and Europe. Publicly traded BDCs, which contain portfolios of lower-rated private credit, have traded at widening discounts to their book value. And even in the mighty U.S. stock market, my colleague Mike Wilson and our U.S. equity strategy team note that over half of the 3000 largest stocks have seen a drawdown of at least 20 percent since June, which happens to be the month that yields started to rise. 2026 may be showing that global growth overall is just less sensitive to higher rates than was initially expected. Large government deficits in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and large spending on AI may be two reasons why. With growth strong and inflation still too high, rates may be simply seeking out a level that they think will keep things in balance. But the interest rate that helps balance – this technology and spending boom – are not the same rates that keep a smaller, weaker, or a more indebted company happy. If higher rates are needed to balance things overall, the weaker tails of the market can still suffer. We've seen this in the past, particularly 2005. Back then, a large U.S. government deficit, booming China CapEx, and significant U.S. housing wealth all helped push up rates. The overall econom y held up for several more years. But weaker parts of the credit market were challenged by those rates more quickly. We think the same may be true today and therefore favor an upper quality bias. We favor high-yield bonds over loans and decompression across credit indices. Thank you as always for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

U.S. mortgage rates are hovering around their highest levels in three years. Morgan Stanley Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan examine the forces keeping homeowners locked in and buyers priced out of the housing market. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Jay Bacow: Jim, [we’re] getting a lot of questions about mortgage rates. We've been flying across the country talking to people. Are your arms tired? James Egan: I'm hoping that all the extra flapping will give them just a little bit more definition so we can show them off as we talk about adjustable-rate mortgages. Jay Bacow: And that is the definition of an ARM. Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. James Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other co-head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley Jay Bacow: Today, we're here to talk about mortgage rates: how quickly they've moved, why they're here, where they might go, and what it means for the mortgage and housing market. It's Thursday, October 8th, at 9am in New York. Jim, as of this recording, the 10-year is over 5.3 percent. Rates haven't closed this high since 2002. The 30-year mortgage rate is around 7.5 percent. It’s about 150 basis points up since the beginning of February. James Egan: Right. There have been quick moves in rates that has led to quick moves in mortgage rates. There are a lot of implications to that – from affordability, the housing market, mortgage market. But when we think about the relationship between mortgage rates and interest rates, Jay, there's also a feedback mechanism there. Convexity hedging is what it's typically called. Can you discuss the role that that might have played in this current episode? And what we should expect going forward? Jay Bacow: Sure. So, the biggest driver of mortgage rates is Treasury rates. And Treasury rates are driven by a number of factors, and right now most people would point to inflation expectations and geopolitical concerns. However, as Treasury rates go higher, homeowners that currently have a mortgage are less likely to move. And because they're less likely to move, that means that the average life of those mortgages that investors own gets longer. And because mortgage investors typically want to keep their duration profile constant – as the average life of those mortgages gets longer, they are then going to need to either sell those mortgages or sell Treasuries, which will cause yields to go even higher. And there's a bit of a feedback loop on that, which can pressure yields and mortgage rates even higher. But what we would say is, at this point, we don't think there's a huge mechanism of that going through at this rate level. The average mortgage rate that homeowners have in America is almost exactly 4.5 percent. Obviously, they're less likely to move as rates go up. But they're 300 basis points out of the money. So, from that point, it matters. But it didn't matter as much as when rates were a little lower. However, Jim, 7.5 percent mortgage rate – what does this do for housing affordability? Can you put that in context? James Egan: Yeah. So, if we just think about this in terms of what a 7.5 percent mortgage rate implies for the monthly payment on the median-priced home, we are now up over $325 dollars if we use that 7.5 percent – assuming home prices are where they are today, incomes are where they are today. That monthly payment's up over $325 from where we are at local lows in February; or where we were at local lows in February. That's a 17 percent increase, in terms of that monthly payment over just a seven-month period. Jay Bacow: Alright, so, 17 percent increase over a seven-month period, that's kind of scary. But as you and I have talked about in the past, given the fixed rate nature of the U.S. mortgage market, it's a tad misleading for the average homeowner in America. So, what does this do to sales? Obviously, it's scary for new homeowners, though. James Egan: Right. Look, you brought up the implications from a duration perspective, a convexity hedging perspective. All of this is just how the lock-in effect continues to have material implications for the housing market, for mortgage markets. But yes, these affordability issues – not that bad for homeowners who have an average rate below 4.5 percent. That's not changing. Over 90 percent of the balance or count of mortgages, depending on how you want to look at it, in the United States remains fixed rate. Their payments aren't changing, right? But the marginal home buyer, things are getting less affordable. I don't like to use the term demand destruction. I think that sounds a little bit too over the top here. But like we are seeing some of our higher frequency or more leading indicator demand metrics show a little bit of softening here. Pending home sales, past two months, 3 to 5 percent down year-over-year. Purchase applications, which had been very strong, in September, they were down about 10 percent year-over-year. So, look, we were seeing a little bit of demand increases this year. We were up about 2 percent year-to-date through July. It's a small increase off of a very, very low base. But we think you're going to see with rates at these levels, if we maintain these levels, is effectively the probability or any real ability of the market to escape to the upside from an activity perspective? That probability keeps coming down. And we're going to be stuck in this turnover, very range-bound, lowest level of sales as a percentage of the housing market in 40 years. Jay Bacow: So really low activity, what does that do to prices? Is there some flow through? Is there relief coming? James Egan: Look, as demand softens, the kind of first-order expectation or the heuristic should be that prices should soften as well. But again, lock-in effect; what we've actually seen is the rate of growth for existing listings at these levels has slowed. And it's slowed pretty materially. That's actually led to home price appreciation accelerating over the past few months. We've gone from just 0.7 or 0.8 percent four months ago to 1.9 percent for the data that we just received. We think that that level is kind of sustainable here, and we're going to be between like roughly 2 percent, give or take, for the remainder of this year. Now, you and I have both been mentioning the lock-in effect throughout the course of this. Yes, an overwhelming majority of the market is fixed rate right now. But the media, our conversations with clients, there's been a lot of discussion of potentially a growing share of adjustable-rate mortgages to kind of help the marginal homeowner with affordability. What are we seeing in ARMs right now? Jay Bacow: Okay. Yeah, so great question, and we are seeing a pickup in ARM issuance. If we look at the percentage of mortgages that were ARMs through the first half of this year and compare them to the percentage of ARMs in the first half of last year, it's increased by about 1 percent on aggregate issuance. It's went from about a little over 15 percent to a little over 16 percent. And so, 1 percent increase is not a huge number by itself, but when we're talking about a little over $2 trillion of expected issuance in the course of the year across the entire mortgage market, this does help on the margin. And we do think, as we said in the past, that more uptake of ARMs would likely be a little bit of a positive solution to some of the affordability challenges. But Jim, if people take out more ARMs, recognizing that most people only have two arms, should we be worrying about a repeat of the financial crisis and lending standards? James Egan: So, this is a question that we get a lot when we start talking about moving away from fixed-rate mortgages. And the point that I want to stress; that we want to stress here, is not all ARMs are created equal… Jay Bacow: Mine are stronger than yours? James Egan: Sure, we'll go with that. But also, if we control for borrower characteristics, right? Credit scores, loan-to-value ratios, debt-to-income ratios, right? And then we compare performance of adjustable-rate mortgages to fixed-rate mortgages, 7-1 ARMs, 10-1 ARMs, they perform very much like fixed-rate mortgages. It's really the short-reset ARMs, what we'll call affordability products. So, they only have 24-month or 36-month fixed periods. Those are what have historically showed a much higher rate of default and something that would get us a little bit more concerned about lending standards if those were the products we're talking about. Thankfully, they're not right now. The ARM growth that we're seeing is in the 5-1, 7-1, 10-1 space. Those have historically, again, controlling for borrower performance, performed like fixed-rate mortgages. And so, we think that you can expand mortgage product into ARMs and do it responsibly. Jay Bacow: All right. Jim, always a pleasure speaking with you. James Egan: And always great speaking to you too, Jay. And to all of our regular listeners out there, thank you for adding us to your playlist. Let us know what you think wherever you get this podcast, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today. Jay Bacow: Go smash that subscribe button.

The AI investment boom has been a defining force in markets. Our Head of Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore looks at whether the U.S. midterm elections could change the spending and policies behind it. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley.  Today, what the midterms could mean for the AI investment cycle.  It's Wednesday, October 7th at 10am in New York.  I've spoken on this podcast before about the broader implications of the midterm elections.  This time, I want to go a little deeper on what they could mean specifically for AI sentiment.  We think about that through two separate channels. The first is data center opposition, where we do think the elections can be an important catalyst. The second is broader AI safety and regulation, where we think the election outcome matters much less.  And that distinction is important. It suggests that the midterms are more likely to influence investor confidence in the pace and the durability of AI infrastructure spending, rather than fundamentally rewriting the rules governing AI.  Let's start with data centers. Our base case is still a conditional build-out. We still expect substantial AI infrastructure investment, but increasingly subject to conditions around things like power costs, grid investment, siting, permitting, water use, and community impact. We don't expect a broad federal pause on data center development.  AI compute is increasingly being viewed in Washington as strategic infrastructure, particularly when you consider competition with China. So, we think that national security framing should remain supportive of the build-out.  But here's the important point for these elections. Many of the policy levers that can actually delay a project sit well below the federal level. Think about things like interconnection approvals, large load electricity tariffs, zoning, water permits, and tax abatements. Those are all generally controlled by states, utility commissions, and local governments.  So, when it comes to AI infrastructure, we actually think governors, state legislatures, and public utility commissions may ultimately matter more than control of any one Senate seat in particular. And that brings us to sentiment.  At the federal level, we think a Republican sweep would likely be the most constructive outcome for AI infrastructure sentiment. Now, that's because investors would likely expect fewer regulatory constraints ahead. As well as a greater likelihood of active support for permitting reform, additional power generation, and development on federal land.  A divided government outcome, we think, looks closer to the status quo. It would preserve questions about the durability of the build-out, but the gridlock in D.C. would also leave many of the substantive decisions at the state and local level.  And lastly, we think a Democratic sweep would be the least constructive outcome for sentiment. Now, importantly, that doesn't mean that we expect a nationwide data center moratorium, as I said. Rather, investors could interpret Democratic outperformance as increasing the probability of tighter local restrictions in the near term, and potentially much more federal scrutiny after the next 2028 elections.  So that's the infrastructure side. What about AI regulation more broadly? Here, we think the midterms are actually much less consequential. Our expectation remains for incremental and fragmented regulation rather than a sweeping new federal regime.  AI safety, data governance, and frontier model oversight, we think can certainly see targeted action. But we just don't think congressional composition by itself is likely to trigger comprehensive legislation – unless there's a sufficiently high-profile safety or security incident. Executive agencies are also likely to remain the more important actors on tech restrictions and model access.  And that gets us to the main takeaway for investors. The midterms probably won't determine whether the AI investment cycle continues. We think the strategic case for expanding U.S. compute capacity remains intact.  What they can influence, however, is the friction around that build-out. Where the projects get built, how quickly they receive approval? Who bears the cost? And ultimately, how confident investors are in the durability of AI CapEx?  So, when we think about what happens in November through an AI lens, we'll be watching D.C. But in many cases, the more important signals can come from governors' races, utility commissions, and local elections – because that's where the politics of AI are increasingly meeting the physical constraints of actually building it.  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.

Our Japan Financials Analyst Mia Nagasaka explains why a once-in-30-year investment cycle could transform corporate financing and open a new chapter for Japanese banks. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Mia Nagasaka, Head of Japan Financials Research at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities.  Today – a once-in-30-year investment cycle is changing how investors think about Japanese banks. It’s Tuesday, October 6th, at 10am in Tokyo.  For decades, Japanese companies had more cash than investment opportunities. But now it's changing.  This marks a new chapter for Japanese banks. The first stage of recovery was largely about interest rates. As Japan moved away from negative rates, higher lending yields helped bank margins and earnings. This next stage is about growth in the banking business itself, driven by companies investing more and needing more external capital.  In fact, we think Japan is entering its first meaningful capex cycle in nearly three decades. Investment needs are broadening, from labor-saving technology to the replacement of aging equipment. Companies are also becoming more active in reallocating capital toward businesses where they see stronger returns. For banks, the most direct opportunity is lending. We expect Japan’s domestic loan market to grow from about 588 trillion yen, or roughly 3.7 trillion U.S. dollars, in the fiscal year ending March 2026 to roughly 712 trillion yen, or about 4.5 trillion dollars, by March 2031. Loan growth could run at around 5 percent annually early in the investment cycle, then settle at about 3 to 4 percent.  And the financing opportunity extends beyond loans. Take Japan’s debt capital markets, where companies raise money by issuing bonds. We expect them to grow from about 52 trillion yen, or roughly 331billion dollars, to 63 trillion yen, or about 401 billion dollars, by March 2031. We also forecast the M&A market to rise from 23 trillion yen, or roughly 146 billion dollars, to 32 trillion yen, or about 204 billion dollars, over the same period. Large projects often need several forms of financing, so lending can open the door to underwriting and advisory fees as well.  This gives banks more ways to generate earnings. In the early phase, banks can benefit mainly from lending and project finance. As projects mature, fee-based businesses such as capital markets and M&A can contribute more. This makes the opportunity look less like a short-lived lending boom and more like a multi-stage financing cycle. The key measure to watch is return on equity, which shows how effectively a bank turns shareholder capital into profit. Japan’s megabanks are currently generating ROEs of roughly 10 to 11 percent. We see a path toward around 15 percent over the medium term. Structural growth in corporate financing demand alone could add about 1 to 1.5 percentage points. So, the bigger story is not simply that rates have risen. Japan may be moving from an economy defined by excess savings and underinvestment toward one where companies need capital to grow. If that transition continues, banks could have substantially more productive opportunities to deploy their balance sheets. 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.

Recent headlines about Canada have focused on trade uncertainty and weak productivity. But our Global Economist Arunima Sinha explains why the country may be on the cusp of a stronger, investment-led growth cycle. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript -----   Arunima Sinha: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Arunima Sinha from Morgan Stanley's Global and U.S. Economics teams.  Today, why Canada's economy may be closer to a new growth phase.  It's Monday, October 5th at 10am in New York.  Canada has been in the news recently. There have been lots of headlines related to trade, around population growth, around weak productivity, years of underinvestment. And those are real constraints, and they have weighed on the near-term outlook.  At Morgan Stanley, we are more constructive on the medium-term outlook for Canada. And we recently wrote a report around this along with our strategists titled, “Canada: The Next Acceleration.” And, from our perspective, we think that the near-term uncertainty around trade is actually clouding the opportunity for global investors.  There are three points that we make in the report.  We estimate that the growth model in Canada over the next three to four years can actually pivot from the export-led growth story that we've seen over the past few years into one that emphasizes capital deepening and greater technological diffusion across the economy.  So, it really is about the domestic build-out and the opportunity in shifting away from trade and export-led growth into a more productive economy – that's not just larger over time but can actually grow at a much faster pace as well. And so, by our estimates, we think that potential growth in Canada could feasibly rise from about 1.5 percent to closer to 1.75 percent.  The way that we see it, this really doesn't require things to start from scratch. There are already large capital pipelines that are in place. But one of the things that we do note is that a lot of these pipelines are actually concentrated in a few sectors.  So, about half of these are in utilities and oil and gas, transportation. These sectors together combine about 13 to 14 percent of the gross value add for the economy. But they actually account for more than half of the announced capital pipelines. And so, for the money that's going into the economy – and a lot of this is going into structures – it's not going as much into machinery and equipment.  And so, while the capital build-out is going to support the widening, we also need to think about crowding in private investment into other sectors. And some of these other sectors that we've identified in the note, such as finance, information services, that have historically had much greater gains in productivity – they would need to see bigger capital intentions as well.  The other opportunity that we identify for the Canadian growth model is – although the near-term population growth has been slowing, it doesn't actually change the longer run demographic picture. We looked at what the numbers would be for the working age population growth for Canada, taking 2025 as a starting point. And what we see is that Canadian working age population is going to rise by about 3 percent by 2035, by 5 percent by 2040, and 6 percent by 2045.  Meanwhile, most of the developed economy peers are going to see shrinkage in their working age populations. And so that is really going to give Canada a window into the rest of the 2030s to continue to accelerate its growth model.  From our perspective, the test for the next few years is going to be whether the investment that's being undertaken in a few sectors spreads beyond the big projects. And it really lifts productivity across the economy. Construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and wholesale will be especially important because they are machinery intensive, technology adoption remains low, and recent productivity gaps are large.  If those sectors begin to improve, Canada could enter the 2030s with a much stronger growth engine than it has today. And in our perspective, Canada's potential growth could actually pivot from being about 1.5 percent today to entering the 2030s with close to 2 percent in potential output growth.  Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share our Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.