Thoughts on the Market

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• Pet Industry and the Bite of Higher Costs 01.06.2026 4Min.

  Our U.S. Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst Simeon Gutman explains how affordability and new shopping habits are changing how Americans choose and care for their pets. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Simeon Gutman: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Simeon Gutman, Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Hardlines, Broadlines and Food Retail Analyst.  Today: the state of the pet economy, or as we lovingly call it, the “petriarchy.”  It’s Monday, June 1st, at 10am in New York. Hey Sammy, who wants to go on a walk?  If you have a pet, you probably know the routine. You go in for one bag of food. Then you remember the treats, the medicine, the grooming appointment. Maybe the toy they definitely do not need. And then the vet bill you hope is not around the corner.  Pets are family. But family has gotten more expensive.  That’s the big shift in the U.S. pet economy. The emotional bond is still powerful. About two-thirds of dog and cat owners strongly agree their pet is an important member of the family. More than one-third say they would take on debt to pay for a pet’s medical expenses.  Today, the growth story in the pet industry has changed. After an extraordinary post-pandemic run, it has entered a slower, more mature phase. We see growth settling around 4 percent, down from nearly 9 percent annually from 2019 to 2025.  That doesn’t mean the market is shrinking. We still see total U.S. pet spending rising from about [$]200 billion in 2025 to more than [$]240 billion by 2030. But the easy growth days look behind us. The industry now has to work harder for each dollar.  Affordability sits at the center of this story. A pet may start as an emotional decision, but it quickly becomes a line item in the household budget. Overall pet ownership remains above pre-COVID levels, at about 67 percent, but it has slipped from the 2024 high. That pressure shows up most clearly among younger consumers for whom cost has become the top barrier.  And consumers are adapting. When pet food prices rise, shoppers stock up on sale items, compare prices online and in-store, and in some cases trade down. Still, pet food remains resilient. Almost all owners plan to keep spending the same or spend more on pet food over the next six months.  The bigger change is that services continue to take share from products, with veterinary care at the center. Services accounted for just over 40 percent of pet industry spending in 2025, and we see that moving higher by 2030. Food and toys still matter, but healthcare, prescriptions, diagnostics and routine care are becoming a bigger part of the wallet.  That brings us to vets – who remain the most trusted source of pet care information, cited by nearly 60 percent of owners. Younger pet owners still rely on vets, but they also turn more to online sources, friends, relatives and even store personnel. About three-quarters of owners visited a vet in the past six months, but average visits fell to under two, which is down from just over two in 2024. This points to a more cautious consumer, especially around routine care.  We also see a subtle shift in the kinds of pets people choose. Cat ownership has moved higher versus pre-COVID levels, while dog ownership among younger adults has pulled back from its 2024 peak. That shift is not surprising, given that cats typically come with lower overall spending than dogs.  Shopping habits are changing as well. Online pet product shopping has grown a lot since 2019, but its share of wallet has leveled off at roughly one-third.  The next leg of digital growth may come less from simply moving store purchases online and more from subscriptions, pharmacy, healthcare and broader pet care ecosystems.  So where does that leave the pet economy? Pet owners are certainly not walking away from their animals. But they are making more practical choices, watching prices more closely, and deciding where convenience, health and value fit into the same budget.  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.
• Finding Value in Commercial Real Estate Credit 29.05.2026 4Min.

  Commercial real estate debt is now one of the market’s most avoided asset classes. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets explains why there may be an opportunity to invest in those securities. 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, why commercial real estate debt could be overlooked and undervalued.  It's Friday, May 29th at 2pm in London.  Bond yields have risen this year, and it's attracting strong flows into fixed income markets. The problem is that all of that demand is narrowing the risk premium that one receives. Spreads on U.S. mortgage bonds are richer than 89 percent of observations over the last 20 years. Spreads on the U.S. high yield market, well, they're richer than 96 percent of the time. And spreads on U.S. investment grade, it's 99 percent.  We live in a world where the risk premium on most bonds is very low versus history, but there are exceptions. One is debt backed by commercial mortgages or so-called CMBS. Spreads here, notably and unusually, are significantly higher than the long run average. It is a market that we like.  Commercial property is largely comprised of lending against office buildings, apartments, retail complexes, and industrial sites like warehouses. The first three have faced major challenges over the last five years.  Office values have slumped as investors feared more people working from home. Apartments have suffered from significant supply in building, conceived in a low-rate world as this has come online. And retail has faced long-run concern about the trend of more online shopping. And the rise of interest rates, well, that's loomed over everything.  A building, in a lot of ways, is a lot like a bond, promising a dependable stream of rents over time. When an investor can get that stream of cash flows from the bond market, commercial property prices must adjust lower to remain competitive.  These challenges are material, but they are also not new. Indeed, investors may recall that fears around commercial property peaked way back in early 2023 following significant rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Back then, there were widespread fears that commercial property weakness would ricochet back and threaten the banking system.  Three years later, those worst fears have not been realized. And while defaults and restructurings have happened, overall commercial property fundamentals are beginning to pick back up.  Commercial property transaction volumes increased 27 percent in the U.S. in the first quarter relative to a year prior; and prices are rising, up about 5 percent over the same period. The amount of commercial real estate debt being originated is up about 40 percent over the last year – a sign that lenders are coming back. And the number of commercial deals that are becoming distressed and unable to pay their bills, they just saw their first quarterly decline since all of those problems in early 2023.  Part of this recovery in the commercial real estate market may be explained by U.S. growth, which continues to be resilient, and some of it mirrors other cycles.  When rates rose and commercial lending markets weakened, the construction of new properties really slowed down. It takes several years to build a building, and so it's only now that the impact of everything that was not built is starting to be felt.  With less supply coming online, the value of existing property is better supported, especially relative to the more elevated risk premiums on offer for its debt.  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.
• What Changed After the U.S.-China Summit? 28.05.2026 3Min.

  Our Deputy Global Head of Research Michael Zezas explains why the recent U.S.-China summit may have eased near-term risks, without changing the bigger picture for investors. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Deputy Global Head of Research.  Today, we're talking about what investors should take away from the recent U.S.-China summit.  It's Thursday, May 28th at 10:30am in New York.  It's been two weeks since the much-anticipated U.S.-China summit, where Presidents Trump and Xi met to discuss a wide array of issues in their relationship. Understandably, investors were watching carefully. The relationship between the two countries and its potential impact on global economic conditions has been a driver of markets at key intervals.  Brinksmanship around the trade relationship has been particularly noteworthy. In 2025, the level of tariffs substantially influenced macro markets, and export restrictions for semiconductors and rare earths drove volatility in key equity sectors such as tech hardware. Coming into the summit, the two countries had found a tenuous equilibrium, with the policy volatility of last year giving way to an uneasy calm this year.  So, did the summit change anything?  As best we can tell, not really. Some modest progress was made in lower sensitivity areas, but investors shouldn't confuse that with a durable reset in relations. The summit, in our view, points to a more managed relationship, not a fundamentally stable one.  Here's what investors should keep in mind. At the risk of stating the obvious, the concrete public policy choices of each country matter a lot from here. President Trump emphasized renewed investment in the U.S.-China relationship. That's good. Talking beats not talking. But the bigger issue is what happens next.  So far, we haven't seen broad language around joint efforts to establish trade and investment cooperation boards translated into workable arrangements; which if they materialized might hint at a more stable relationship So, net-net for investors, the summit is best understood as a continuation of the status quo, not a pivot. It may reduce near-term tail risks, which is sufficient to support the many other positive drivers pushing equity markets higher.  But it does not eliminate the structural forces behind U.S.-China competition.  That means we'll keep tracking this relationship as an economic and markets catalyst and keep you in the loop.  Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen. And share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.
• The Battle for the Future of Gaming 27.05.2026 3Min.

  As AI changes the video game industry, Matt Cost, from Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Internet team, takes us through the game play and what could drive the next level of engagement. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Matt Cost, from Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Internet team.  Today – how new AI tools are reshaping the video game industry.  It’s Wednesday, May 27th, at 10am in New York.  We’ve all done it at some point. You think you’ll open your phone for just a few minutes. But end up in a game, a match, or a virtual world for much longer than you planned. Now, that window of attention is at the heart of one of the biggest battles in entertainment.  Americans over 15 years old spend about 22 minutes per day playing games – that’s more than they spend socializing, playing sports, or reading. And the next big shift in gaming may stem from who gets to create games and how they do it.  We expect consumers to spend more than $275 billion on video games in 2026. And the industry is reinvesting over $50 billion of that into game development and operations. But AI could cut that by nearly half.  Today, making a major game is expensive, slow, and labor-intensive. A typical AAA title – the gaming equivalent of a studio blockbuster – can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take four years to build. More than 90 percent of that cost is people: so that’s developers, designers, artists, writers and many more.  But AI could change that math. New tools could increase productivity multiple times over, helping smaller teams do more in less time. Even after accounting for AI compute and asset-generation expense, we think that cost savings could exceed 40 percent. That’s over $100 million per game project. Across the industry, that could generate savings of roughly $22 billion.  But that money won’t just go straight to profits. Increased competition may erode those savings. And studios might put more money into marketing in response. So, AI could still meaningfully shift value across the gaming ecosystem. The positives are clear. AI can speed up coding, asset creation, testing, and many other processes that are manual today. That’ll let studios spend less time on repetitive work and more time on higher-value creative tasks.  But it’s tough for newcomers to level up. AI does open the door for new players, but we think the industry looks more insulated from near-term disruption than the market fears – especially for companies with strong IP and advantages in live operations, data, and distribution.  AI can help generate worlds, characters, and digital assets, but great gameplay is harder. Gameplay is the feel, the challenge, the feedback, and the fun. Models still struggle to measure that, let alone deliver it consistently.  Live operations are another moat for established gaming companies. Many successful games don’t end at launch. Teams run them for years through updates, events, and passionate communities. That skill is hard to copy. And often it determines whether a game becomes a lasting franchise or fades quickly. So gradual integration of AI looks more likely than overnight replacement.  Finally, the largest opportunity may still be on the horizon. Beyond lowering the cost of making today’s games, AI could unlock entirely new types of interactive experiences that didn’t exist until now. And the game industry has been through this process before, when new technologies like smartphones changed games forever. But ultimately, the prize is still the same: building something that people can’t stop playing. 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.
• Asia’s Capex Boom Goes Beyond AI 26.05.2026 5Min.

  Our Chief Asia Economist Chetan Ahya looks at why spending not only on AI, but also on energy and defense, could drive Asia's strongest industrial cycle in decades. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley's Chief Asia Economist.  Today – why Asia is headed toward its strongest industrial cycle since the mid-2000s.  It's Tuesday, May 26th, at 2pm in Hong Kong.  The market narrative in Asia has been narrowly – almost exclusively – focused on artificial intelligence. But AI is just one aspect of a much broader shift across the region.  We think Asia is entering an industrial supercycle. And this is being driven by a sustained rise in capital expenditures across AI, energy, defense and [the] broader industrial sector.  The numbers behind this are substantial. We forecast Asia's total investment could rise from about $11 trillion today to $16 trillion by 2030. So this implies a 7 percent annual growth rate over the next five years, which is triple the pace of the past two years, making it quite significant. And for the high growth sector such as AI, energy, defense and broader industrial sector we expect capex to grow at an even faster runrate of about 16 percent a year.  Now let's talk about the drivers.  No doubt, the first big driver behind this momentum is AI. Asia needs to invest more in AI infrastructure. At the same time, Asian chipmakers and memory producers are lifting capex to meet demand of U.S. hyperscalers for building data centres.  The second driver is energy. Asia needs to invest in the energy sector for three reasons – for powering AI, energy transition and energy security. The power demand for AI compute is growing exponentially. On top of that, economies are having to shift towards renewables, and that needs more investment in grids, storage, and power generation equipment. Moreover, the recent geopolitical tensions have made energy security a bigger policy priority, especially for Asia which is dependent on imported energy.  The third driver is defense. Now, even before the recent escalation in the Middle East, defense budgets across Asia were moving higher. This year, China has planned their defense spending to grow at a pace faster than its GDP growth. Meanwhile, India has raised budgetary allocations for defense capex by 18 percent this year. At the same time, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are aiming to lift their combined defense spending from about 1.7 percent of GDP to 3 percent.  The fourth driver is broader industrial sector investment. Every economy in the region is working to secure their supply chains and focused more on onshoring of critical inputs for their domestic production.  So what does this mean for Asia? The region stands to reap the benefits of a rise in capex [spending] twice over. First, the increase in Asia’s capex will fuel its industrial cycle. Second, you have to consider [that] Asia is the world’s production house. And as rest of the world is increasing capex investment in the areas I identified earlier, Asia benefits from feeding this global demand.  Already, the evidence of a strong industrial cycle is visible. We prefer to look at capital goods imports as a proxy for capex. And that has been growing at an impressive rate of 27 percent on a year-over-year basis in dollar terms. Industrial production [growth] is nearing a four-year high. And non-tech exports, which are important from industrial production perspective, have staged a strong recovery since the fourth quarter of last year.  So which Asian economies will benefit? As such, all of them. But China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are the biggest beneficiaries because they are meeting both domestic and export demands. On the other hand, India's industrial sector benefits primarily from its own domestic capex cycle. The pickup in Asia’s industrial production is pushing industrial commodities prices higher, helping Australia and Indonesia, the two biggest commodity exporters in the region.  This next chapter of Asia’s growth story will filter through – from capex to jobs and income growth, and then through to the consumer. That's why this is not just an AI story. It will become a broader economic recovery across the region.  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.
• The New Japan Trade 22.05.2026 11Min.

  The conclusion of our two-part episode from Morgan Stanley and MUFG’s Japan Summit looks at structural shifts in Japan’s economy and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s strategic growth agenda. 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. This is Part 2 of our podcast from the Japan Summit. It’s Friday, May 22nd at 8 am in Tokyo. I might stick with equities for just a minute, and Sho, just to dig deeper into the equity market. Jonathan expressed some of the bullishness. Anything you want to elaborate on where the real strong conviction on this positive view about Japanese equities is coming from? And then just as a warning, I'm going to come back to you and ask, if you're wrong, where could you be wrong? Because again, I think where we add value most to clients is not just giving a clear view, but also pressure testing that view. Sho Nakazawa: Our constructive view on Japan equities comes down to one simple point. Three structural changes are still continuing. So, the first is shifting macro environment. The combination of stable inflation and wage growth is a kind of phenomenon we have not seen, at least in my lifetime. It changes corporates and households’ behavior, especially in terms of balance sheet management. And then secondly, the corporates profit improvements. We do not see it as a cyclical recovery. We see it as a structural change. As in the past, Japan corporates heavily relied on cost-cutting amid a deflationary environment. But today, price pass-through is improving, and the Japan corporates are becoming better positioned in growth profit in nominal growth environment. The third is corporate governance reform. Awareness of the capital efficiency has clearly increased. We continue to see share buybacks, dividends increase, and a portfolio restructuring as well. And on top of that, the Takaichi administration has made growth investment and crisis management investment as well. Of course, the Middle East situation is a source of noise. But structurally is a supporting factor for Japan equities secular bear market, which is a view Jonathan has held for very long time, has actually becoming stronger. But let me say that if I'm wrong, maybe I should be more bullish. In fact, the two key drivers here, if we assess the bear case scenario on Japan equities… So, one key driver should be the upside come from the investors constructive view on the Japan fiscal efficiency. And on a micro level, the corporate behavior changing faster than market expects. If we assess the recent rise in long-term yields, it reflect the concern to the Japan fiscal position and that BoJ behind the curve. It would weigh on the Japan equity valuation because it raises cost of capital and it weighs on the Japan equity valuation. But on the other hand, [the] Japanese government will disclose its basic policy in June. And if it could include a credible plan to improve Japan’s fiscal positions, perhaps under Japan version of DOGE, which is led by Financial Minister Katayama-san, I think it could alleviate the excessive concern toward the Japan's fiscal position, and it [could] lower the cost of capital on Japan equities. You know, micro level, the corporates behavior is already changing, as I mentioned. But there's still plenty, you know, space for Japan corporates to utilize non-cash generating assets such as cash and deposit, which is equivalent to 60 percent of GDP. The ratio is far higher than our global peers. So, if Japan corporates move further to capital efficiency or portfolio restructuring or use some excess capital, I think there should be additional room for Japan equity market to re-rate higher. Seth Carpenter: All right. So, if you're wrong, it's insufficient bullishness. That’s a great place to be. So, so Koichi, Jonathan and Sho are bullish on equities. And so, do you expect big shift in capital flows, and would that drive further appreciation of the currency? How do you think about the global investors' view of Japan? And what it means for capital flows on the one hand, and the value of the currency on the other? Koichi Sugisaki: As for the capital flows, I think under this fresh regime, what's the notable change among the Japanese financials? That they are shifting away from the fixed income product, I mean, like JGBs. Given the current attractive yields, you maybe wonder[ing] why the banking sectors buy the JGBs. But according to the recent disclosures, they have not purchased the JGBs much because their lending activity performed very well. So, as far as their lending activity have performed well, they have no incentive to make money in the securities investment. You know, their lending activity have accelerated thanks to the corporate CapEx investment to improve the productivity amidst the labor shortages in Japan. Once the banking sector starts to see some slowdown or some symptom of the lending activity to slow down, in such a case, they are quickly shifted to the securities investment and the JGB market will change the world. But so far, you know, lending growth [has] accelerated much. You know, the April lending growth is around 6 percent on the year-on-year basis, very strong. So, I think the banking sector still not have a[n] incentive to buy the JGBs. As for the lifers, [the] case is much more serious, I think. Because of the younger ages shifting towards the equities to defend the asset, particularly under the new NISA scheme [which] was launched in 2024. The younger peoples basically allocate their asset to the equities rather than the saving type of the products. Which means that the lifers are struggling to make, to gather the new monies. And this means that the demand for the long-term JGB to shrink. And the Japan lifers already filled the duration this much by 2023 to prepare for the new regulations starting from this fiscal year. Now, fortunately, they already finished the duration this much, this type of operation by 2023. But the yield [has] gone up from 2024, thanks to the BoJ's normalization. So, under such conditions, they are now struggling to the high market loss on the long-term JGBs. And some of lifers are now facing the impairment loss accounting. That actually [makes] lifers a net seller of the long-term JGBs rather than the buyers. Seth Carpenter: Okay, super helpful. Okay, we focused a lot on near-term developments, the energy shock, first quarter GDP. But we can think about a longer-term growth scenario. And there, I think AI comes in at times. Chetan, you've talked about the near-term super cycle, and I think there's a near-term aggregate demand side to AI, but over the longer term, maybe it's more supply. When I think about where growth is going, though, I also think about shifts in the strategy for policy. So maybe Yamaguchi-san, you can talk to me a bit on your take of Prime Minister Takaichi's policies. What do we think is likely to get announced? When? How do you see it affecting the long-term growth outlook for Japan? Takeshi Yamaguchi: [The] Japanese government publishes growth strategy report and the basic policy on fiscal management or honebuto policy in June every year. But I think this year's, you know, documents will be pretty important because these are the first documents under the Takaichi administration. And these documents will set the direction of economic policy by Takaichi-san, Sanae Takaichi. Or Sanae-nomics. Compared with Abenomics, I think Takaichi-san focuses more on the supply side issues, you know, supply domestic investment. While Abenomics focused more on the exit from deflation, focusing on demand side policy, particularly, you know, monetary easing. In the growth strategy report, the focus will be strategic investment in 17 strategic areas, including AI, especially, you know, AI robotics, semiconductors, defense and space, cybersecurity, and content industry and so on. Another important point of Sanaeconomic system, there's overlap between these strategic investment areas and national securities. The government will also update its defense strategy by the end of this year, and there'll be a increase in the defense budget target. The focus will be a lot on, you know, I think, dual use technologies, and also resilience of supply chains going ahead. Another important point is, I think there will be a change in the budget formation process. I think, under deflation there’s effectively cap on non-social security spending. But I think this government will likely allocate budget, you know, for multi-investment. So, I think the budget process will be more flexible. And they put more emphasis on the initial budget rather than the supplementary budget. So, I think, these documents will be pretty important to monitor going ahead. But overall, I think, the government – yes, they do care about the market conditions. They will likely avoid massive, you know, expansion. But I think a slight expansion, especially in the area of strategic investment is likely to happen. Seth Carpenter: Very helpful. Alright, that's the end of the panel. Thank you very much to my colleagues. And this is where I have to shift back into podcast mode to say thank you for listening. And if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please share it with a colleague or friend today. Thank you very much, everybody.
• What’s Driving Japan’s Market Momentum 21.05.2026 11Min.

  Recorded live at the Morgan Stanley and MUFG Japan Summit, our Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research Seth Carpenter led a discussion on Asia’s exposure to the energy shock and Japan’s bullish outlook. 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. And on today's episode, we're bringing you a live taping direct from Morgan Stanley and MUFG's Japan Summit to discuss the macroeconomic overlook. And, in particular, Japan's moment: reflation, reform, and the case for a structural re-rating.  I am joined by Chetan Ahya, our Chief Asia Economist; Takeshi Yamaguchi, our Chief Japan Economist; Jonathan Garner, our Chief Asia and EM Equity Strategist; Koichi Sugisaki, who is our Head of Japan Macro Strategy; and Sho Nakazawa, who is our Japan Equity Strategist.  Seth Carpenter: I will say we have just collectively published our mid-year outlook. So twice a year, Morgan Stanley Macro Research puts together our forecast. We take the time to debate with each other, to pressure test our views on the outlook for the next year and a half to two years.  And I have to say this version of the outlook process may have been the most difficult one that I can remember. And  in no small part because one of the key fundamental drivers of the outlook globally for growth, for inflation is oil, oil prices. And the swings there have been pretty dramatic.  And so, as a result, we put a lot of effort into not just our baseline forecast, but also scenarios and the ways in which our baseline forecast could be wrong.    But Chetan, let me start with you.  Tell us a little bit about the exposure in Asia to, to the energy shock.  Chetan Ahya: So Seth, you're right.    Asia is one of the more exposed part of the world. But I would say that we've been surprised in the way this energy shock has been managed. One is, of course, at the global level, two big swings happened. US exports increased dramatically by 3.8 million barrels per day. Just to give you perspective, global consumption of oil is about 100 million barrels, so it's simple math in terms of how big this number was. And then China parallelly also reduced its imports by 3.5 million barrels. So, we had a 7 million barrel swing from a global oil demand balance perspective. And, secondly, as far as gas is concerned, that is where actually we were more concerned about Asia because Asia was very dependent on Middle Eastern gas. And on that front, China single-handedly has bailed out the region. So, China cut its gas imports by about 45 percent, and that had at least avoided the shortages that we were worried about. We can manage oil prices, but shortages is something very difficult to manage.  So that's at the global level. And within the region, what every economy did is to switch to an alternative source of fuel, whether it is electricity generated through coal or other renewable sources. And particularly that happened in China and India, which are the two big importers of fuel in the region. And then additionally, what we also saw is that everybody managed the fuel price increase quite well. So, on an average, if I look at the stats as of today, only about 25 to 30 percent of the underlying fuel price increase has been passed on to the consumer. So, the governments are taking it, so there is a burden on the fiscal front that is building up.  But as far as the consumers are concerned, this has been a help, and therefore you have not seen a big spike in inflation across the region.  Seth Carpenter:  Okay. So, a lot of comments about Asia in general. Let's go more specific to here in Japan. And so, Yamaguchi-san, you were an early adopter of the Japan reflation view. If we go back a year, two years, three years, you were probably more optimistic, more bullish about growth in the market than consensus. More recently, you've been a little bit more cautious about where growth is going. And so, can you tell us a little bit first why you're a bit more cautious now relative to where I suspect the market is? And then when it comes to the energy shock, how do you see it playing out with the Japanese economy? And should we worry about it derailing this whole reflation trade?  Takeshi Yamaguchi: We think Japanese underlying economic fundamentals remain resilient in the sense that, you know, nominal GDP recovery will continue as a trend. But for this year, I think there's a, you know, short-term slowdown, both in terms of real GDP growth and nominal GDP growth, due to the terms of a trade shock.  So far, you know, thanks to the government energy subsidies and Japan's relatively large strategic oil reserves, the direct impact on households has been limited. But we are already seeing a big increase in producer prices in the April data. It jumped to 4.9 percent {year-over-year], and we expect this producer price index will continue to go up due to the higher oil prices, but also because of the NAFTA-related supply side, you know, disruptions in areas, you know, such as, you know, construction materials, plastic products, and industrial solvents and so on.  That said, we still believe that, you know, underlying economic fundamentals remain resilient in the sense that there's a structural labor shortage. So, wage growth may somewhat slow, but still I think a solid, you know, base up increase will continue next year, especially among young workers. Also, I think this structural tight labor market [is] encouraging companies to step up labor-saving investment. And, I think, together with government's initiatives for domestic investment, I think, domestic CapEx will also likely remain resilient.  So, this year for nominal GDP growth, we expect, you know, slightly negative growth due to the terms of trade loss. But the next year, we are expecting above 4 percent nominal GDP growth. So, the overall, you know, story remains unchanged despite the short-term headwinds.  Seth Carpenter: Okay. So fundamental story remains unchanged. We're pretty optimistic, but it's a matter of long term versus short term Jonathan, let me turn to you. Equity markets are generally optimistic, I would say, these days, but there is a bit of a divergence between views on equities here in Asia, between Japan on the one hand, and EM overall. In the mid-year outlook, you have expressed a preference for Japanese equities over EM.  Can you talk a little bit about that view? Why that preference? Are there sectors or specific stocks that matter more? How are you thinking about this sort of allocation across equity markets for you in Asia?  Jonathan Garner:  So, certainly, as Seth indicated and Chetan and Yamaguchi-san said, it's really an environment where the sector call, particularly the CapEx, super cycle call should drive portfolios. And that naturally leads you in Asia more to North Asia, where Japan is very richly endowed in beneficiaries of the CapEx super cycle. And obviously markets like Korea and Taiwan, and much less so to South Asia, where the larger markets are much more populated by consumer and services stocks.  So, in our portfolio, we're essentially overweight capital spending, underweight the consumer. And when you look at the Japan market, one of the things that my colleague Daniel Blake has done a lot of work is, is the sort of thematic exposures that exist within our coverage. The four core Morgan Stanley research themes of multipolar world, AI, tech diffusion, future of energy and societal shifts, they map into about 75 percent by stock number of our coverage for the Japan market, and they're quite nicely distributed across the stock coverage.  Obviously, some stocks have more than one aspect to them. And that is highly advantageous and much more advantageous than in fact any other large market. Europe of course, doesn't have AI, tech diffusion, or it largely lacks the beneficiaries, the upstream beneficiaries. The US has legacy, sort of, software service, business models and consumer exposure.  Now, it's not to say that all is sort of rosy in the garden. There are large auto OEMs here in Japan where the earnings numbers are challenged. So, it's all about the kind of the dispersion that's going on within the portfolio. But just on the base case targets, 4300 for topics, that's set by Nakazawa-san and myself. It's about 12 percent upside in the base.  In the two weeks since we published the report, EM has fallen back somewhat, so there's about 8 percent upside to our EM target. But on a kind of risk-adjusted bull-bear skew, bear in mind that EM is much more skewed in terms of the earnings drivers of that market. Essentially, if you strip Korea and Taiwan out, there's no earnings growth in EM right now. You would ultimately have to favor Japan. So, Japan should be at the core of any Asia portfolio at the moment.   Seth Carpenter: And can you just give us a little insight as to what you're seeing about how the market is or maybe is not pricing the threat from the energy shock? What are you seeing in equity markets, top line, down into sectors? Do you think there's enough concern? Do you think there's room for that to get, sort of, rerated just on the energy shock situation?  Jonathan Garner: So, what you're seeing is that anything that is consumer-related is really struggling in terms of revisions. I think there are six different subcomponents of the consumer that we can track. Every single one of them has downgrades. And the upgrades are in energy, upstream energy, which isn't that well represented in Japan. There are a couple of names.  In materials, really across the board. In semis and IT across the board, and broadly, tech hardware. And then in the defense capital goods space. And that dispersion in revisions within the Japan market or within Asia as a whole is something that I've never seen before. It does maybe to some extent question the resilience of the consumer in terms of the way that the numbers are being downgraded. So, I'll just leave that hanging a little bit.  Seth Carpenter: Alright, thank you very much to my colleagues. And this is where I have to shift back into podcast mode to say thank you for listening. And if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please share it with a colleague or friend today. Thank you very much everybody.  Voice: That was Part 1 of a special two-part episode from Morgan Stanley and MUFG’s Japan Summit. Join us tomorrow for Part 2 of the conversation.
• Why the UK’s Economy May Surprise Investors Again 20.05.2026 12Min.

  Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets and Chief UK Economist Bruna Skarica discuss why they see a more constructive UK outlook than markets do, despite energy, fiscal and political risks. 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 debate around growth and debt in the United Kingdom.  It's Wednesday, May 20th at 2pm in London.  Bruna, I'm so glad you could join us today because I actually really did want to talk about what's going on here in the United Kingdom. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this is the country where you hear some of the strongest divergence of opinions.  Pessimists point to political uncertainty, vulnerability to oil prices from the Strait of Hormuz, and rising bond yields. And yet, UK growth this year has been pretty good. Inflation is set to come down, and the currency's been pretty stable, hardly the stuff of big instability.  So, Bruna, I was hoping you could help us set the scene. Let's start with how you see the economy.  Bruna Skarica: I actually think your framing is perfect. For the past five years, there has been a striking divergence of opinion on the UK, which I do think mimics to a degree some of the divisions on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.  The question really is – has the country underwent structural changes in the past decade of supply-side shocks such that its potential growth is very low, perhaps as low as 1 percent on the year. And has the inflationary process shifted in such a way that, for example, we need much higher jobless rate in order to generate enough economic slack to get inflation down to 2 percent?  Or the other question is, has the UK just had a unique string of external shocks amplified perhaps by domestic policy choices, which mean that we have seen a prolonged period of low growth and high inflation – but again, without major structural changes.  We are in the more constructive structural camp. I actually think that's probably Morgan Stanley's biggest out of consensus call in the UK. In recent years in particular, we have seen quite robust CapEx. And last year, actually very healthy private sector productivity gains. When you adjust for accurate labor market data, UK's private sector productivity growth is just under 2 percent as of the end of 2025, actually not too far off from the U.S.  But for these good structural trends to persist and continue to improve, we do need a more supportive cyclical environment. And there, unfortunately, given the rise in oil prices, it's hard to be overly constructive about growth and inflation in the UK this year.  We've downgraded our growth forecasts to around 1 percent over [20]26 and [20]27, and we have lifted our inflation projections by around 150 basis points at their peak to a peak of around 3.5 percent later in the year.  Andrew Sheets: So, Bruna, how much does the price of oil or the price of natural gas matter for this outlook, especially as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut?  Bruna Skarica: It does matter a fair bit. We use Morgan Stanley's commodity team's forecasts in our own scenario analyses for the UK economy. Now, their base case still sees a gentle decline in oil prices this year, which leads to outcomes I've already mentioned.  The activity flatlines from the second quarter, we have a rise in inflation from April onwards, but we don't have a recession. However, if we fail to see any movement lower in oil, and as you rightly pointed out, natural gas prices as well; or if we even saw a move higher over the summer, we do think that risks of a recession would be quite pronounced in the second half of the year.  UK consumers are already in for a year of flat real disposable income growth. Higher prices of food and energy than in our base case could result in even lower discretionary spending growth than what we're already modeling. And if the Bank of England had to hike rates in this inflationary scenario, we think they would act twice in this kind of a scenario. We also have these tight financial conditions which would weigh on household spending.  Andrew Sheets: So, Bruna, I think that's a great segue into that out-of-consensus call that we have on the Bank of England. You know, the market is expecting the Bank of England to raise interest rates. We think that they'll be on hold.  And if you take a step back, it's a view that, kind of, puts the UK and the Bank of England a little bit between the Federal Reserve, which we think is going to be lowering rates over the next twelve months modestly, and the European Central Bank, which we think will raise rates in the near term.  Could you talk a bit more about why you think it will remain on hold? And why you differ from what the market's seeing?  Bruna Skarica: Yeah, absolutely. So, in our base case, the one where we do see a bit of a decline in oil and gas prices over the course of this year, we think the Bank of England remains on hold. It's important to remember that they were about to cut rates, prior to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. So, there is a bit of restrictiveness there in the starting stance, which we think can just be maintained for a longer period of time than would've otherwise been the case. And so, for the Bank of England to avoid having to tighten rates.  Now, with respect to the market, I think it's fair to say that the market price is a probability-weighted outcome, where there is some chance, a non-negligible one, that the Bank of England will have to hike rates aggressively if oil prices were to rise from here. To give you a bit of clarity here, bank's own analyses suggests that in a scenario where oil prices were to rise towards $130 per barrel and stay there for a few months, the bank could hike rates by four times.  Now, it's interesting that in this scenario, the bank actually doesn't forecast a recession. Now, we think that in the case of such elevated commodity prices, as I've already mentioned, we would certainly see high inflation, potentially as high as 6 percent, but also recessionary impulses. So, even in the scenario of elevated oil prices, we think the bank could only deliver around two hikes.  And so, this kind of probability-weighted outcome that we have, which differs a little bit from our model case, even that is actually fairly lower than what the market is pricing. So, I think that's maybe one of the main differences that we have versus the market. The market is expecting a repeat of 2022, so elevated inflation with growth just about holding on. We disagree that's possible because there's far less scope for a fiscal response to shield growth from an inflationary external shock.  Andrew Sheets: But Bruna, maybe I'll take even a bigger step back here because to borrow a British phrase, it almost seems like some of these debates over oil prices are kind of small beer compared to these two big questions around the UK. Which are, you know, concerns over a lack of productivity growth and concerns that the UK economy is just, kind of, poorly positioned over the long term – especially in the wake of Brexit and concern over the fiscal situation. And this idea that, well, government debt is historically high for the UK, concern that that will continue.  And I think it’s no exaggeration to say that when you talk to investors about the UK, those are often, kind of, two of the big questions that hang over the debate. So, your brief thoughts on both of those issues. And again, where you think the market might be potentially surprised?  Bruna Skarica: So, one of the most interesting things when I talk to clients is when I mention some of these statistics around measured cyclical productivity growth last year, they're often very, very surprised. And we do think it's more important to talk about this because there is evidence, I would say nascent evidence, that UK is benefiting from the AI tailwind. We are seeing more CapEx adoption. We are seeing slower hiring, but more resilient growth, which, as I say, results in cyclical productivity growth that looks very robust, especially in UK's historical context. In the last ten years, of course, UK's productivity growth has been very lackluster.  So, over the course of this year, I think that's actually my primary focus to see how much of this uplift in productivity last year is cyclical and perhaps will dissipate over 2026 with the slowdown in growth. And how much of it was actually structural.  Now, in terms of the fiscal question, you know, one thing that's interesting to mention is the UK is, per IMF calculations, in the middle of the most severe fiscal consolidation amongst its G7 peers. Medium-term fiscal plans deliver a decline in deficit to below 2 percent of GDP by 2030. Again, this is hard to square with gilt yields where they currently stand.  So, it's fair to say that the market is just more focused on the risks of delivery. For example, departmental spending settlements look challenging to deliver. Ministry of Defense is looking for a [£]30 billion top-up to its budgets. Labor backbenchers have recently come out seeking for a bit more capital expenditure. Political volatility is high.  We are actually quite confident around our 2026 fiscal forecasts. We're looking for a deficit at 4 percent. But when it comes to 2027, I think it's fair to say that risks here really depend on the political trajectory with risks skewed, I think, towards a slightly higher deficit than around 3.5 percent, which we have in our base case.  Andrew Sheets: But Bruna, just to be very direct, is it fair to say that for investors who are very concerned about productivity growth in the UK, you'd argue that that actually could be a bit better than people are expecting as capital deepens? And that for investors afraid of the fiscal trajectory, that actually could be one of the best fiscal trajectories In the G7?  Bruna Skarica: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of our recent outlook titles was “Everything is Relative,” and that's exactly the point that we always try to make with the UK. It seems like it has a lot of idiosyncratic fiscal problems, but I would say a lot of its fiscal challenges are very similar to other DM countries – demographic aging, slowing in potential GDP growth.  And when it comes to productivity growth, I’m not trying to argue that we're likely to see UK's potential GDP growth in excess of 2 percent anytime soon. However, we do think that the picture is actually much better in terms of productivity growth than perhaps what the average market participants think is the case.  Andrew Sheets: Finally, Bruna, just a word on politics. I'm mindful that we have a global audience. And for those less steeped in the latest UK news, what's been happening? And what are the developments that investors are watching out for?  Bruna Skarica: Yeah, absolutely. So, we had local elections in the UK in early May, and they delivered quite sizable losses for the governing Labour Party.  Since then, a number of Labour MPs, Members of Parliament, just under 100 of them, called on Prime Minister Starmer to resign. Now, challenging a Labour leader and a prime minister in this case is not an easy process to trigger. However, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is now looking to enter the House of Commons. He will be contesting a by-election, most likely on June 18th. I would say that's the key date to watch out for from here.  Andy Burnham has previously said UK politicians should be less focused on the bond market, but perhaps it's worth reiterating. More recently, he said he supports the current fiscal rules, which of course require debt-to-GDP ratio to be on the declining trajectory over the next five years.  Now, Andrew, for you, what stands out in the pricing of the UK story?  Andrew Sheets: Well, Bruna, I really think this is the country where across everything that we look at, there's the biggest gap, I think, between kind of conventional wisdom and what we at Morgan Stanley are forecasting. The market's conventional wisdom is that productivity growth is going to be very weak and very bad. That's not what you see in the numbers and is in our forecast. The market thinks the government finances are very weak. As you mentioned, relative to the G7, they're on a pretty good trajectory and at a pretty good level.  And I think this is also a market where you have some interesting risk premium. I mean, again, we talk a lot in this podcast about how little risk premium there is in a lot of different asset classes. That's not the case in the UK. The government bond market, in our view, is offering a lot of risk premium to take on the risk of owning the government debt.  And, you know, one example of that is, you know, you look at what interest rate is implied on a UK 10-year government bond 10 years from now. It's implying that yield is 6.6 percent. That's a very high yield, especially if you think that growth is going to be weak in this country. So, I think it's a really interesting macro story.  It's one certainly where we at Morgan Stanley differ, and where there's some risk premium on offer. So, I'm so glad you could join us today to dig into it in more detail.  Bruna Skarica: Absolutely. Thank you so much for the invite.  Andrew Sheets: And 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.
• The Case for Staying Bullish on Equities 19.05.2026 5Min.

  Despite recent pressure on stocks, our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson argues that earnings and AI’s impact remain stronger than many investors appreciate. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist.   Today on the podcast I’ll be discussing our bullish mid-year outlook and why stocks have been under pressure more recently.  It's Tuesday, May 19th at 1:30 pm in New York.    So, let’s get after it.  Every cycle has a moment when investors become so focused on the last risk that they miss the next opportunity. I think we’re in one of those moments right now. The first half of this year has had a familiar feel to it. The market weakened under the surface well before the headlines got loud, investors discovered the new risks after prices had already moved, and sentiment got worse just as the forward setup was getting better.  In other words, it’s déjà vu all over again – but with some important twists.  The biggest twist is where we are in the cycle. Last year, we were still coming out of the tail end of a rolling recession. Today, we’re in a rolling recovery and that is still underappreciated. This matters, because it changes how we should interpret the correction earlier this year and a powerful rally.  In the first quarter, many investors looked at the S&P 500’s less-than-10 percent price decline and concluded the market was complacent. I think that really misses the point. Roughly half of the Russell 3000 saw drawdowns of 20 percent or more, and the S&P 500 forward Price Earnings multiple fell by 18 percent from its peak as forward earnings continued to rise. That is not complacency. That is a market doing what it does best – discounting risk before the narrative catches up.  And those risks were not small. We had private credit concerns, and a major debate around AI disruption to labor markets as well as a new war that drove oil prices up by 100 percent. In many of the areas most directly exposed to these risks, the market delivered 40 percent-plus corrections.  So the provocative question I would ask now is this: what if the biggest risk from here is not being too bullish, but being too cautious after the market has already done the work?  We address these questions in our recently published mid-year outlook. Specifically, we raised our 12 month S&P 500 price target to 8,300 based solely on higher earnings forecasts. In fact, we assume some further valuation compression. We raised our S&P 500 EPS by approximately 5 percent as operating leverage from the rolling recovery, AI adoption, fiscal support and a capex cycle that continues to broaden.  That earnings point is critical. In prior cycles when oil shocks ended the business cycle, earnings were already decelerating or contracting outright before the shock hit. Today, the opposite is happening. Earnings are accelerating from already strong levels. First-quarter median S&P 500 earnings surprise was 6 percent, the strongest in four years; and earnings revisions breadth has moved back up to 22 percent from just 5 percent at the start of reporting season. That is a very different backdrop than the traditional late-cycle oil shock playbook.  AI is another area where I think the consensus has evolved. The labor market disruption narrative has moved faster than the actual implementation. The enterprise application layer is still early, and for now, AI looks more like a margin tailwind than a labor-market wrecking ball. Companies are running leaner, hiring less, and beginning to quantify real benefits rather than simply firing everyone. While true adoption of this technology is likely to be slower than anticipated, the apprehension to over-hire is real and that is driving higher profitability in an indirect way.  Monetary policy and liquidity are still the main risks to this bull market rising unimpeded. With the Fed becoming less dovish and liquidity needs rising, interest rates are on the rise and the equity-rate correlation is negative again. The 4.5 percent level on the 10-year Treasury remains important for valuations.  We don’t need Fed cuts for the equity market to work. History suggests that when earnings growth is strong and the Fed is on hold, returns can still be very solid. The real risk is liquidity – whether the Fed and Treasury underestimates how much capital the private economy now needs to fund investment and recovery. Ultimately, the Fed and Treasury have tools to address these liquidity needs and they have been using them aggressively this year. However, these provisions can ebb and flow and we are currently in a window where it’s going to ebb, leaving stocks vulnerable in the short term.  If the correction persists, investors should use that as an opportunity to add exposure to the parts of the market that benefit from a rolling recovery, specifically Industrials, Financials, Consumer Discretionary Goods. The breadth of the earnings and capex cycle remains under-appreciated, not to mention the recovery from the rolling recession that ended with Liberation Day a year ago.  The bottom line is simple. The correction earlier this year was more significant than most appreciate in terms of valuation and the earnings story is only getting better. The path won’t be smooth, so use any corrections to position for the continued broadening in earnings that we believe will continue. Just remember, by the time the evidence feels obvious, the opportunity is usually gone.  Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!  And I wish my wife a happy birthday.
• How Digital Assets Are Changing Banking 18.05.2026 4Min.

  Our Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research Betsy Graseck explains how digital assets could reshape market infrastructure and how money moves, without overthrowing wholesale banking. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Betsy Graseck: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Betsy Graseck, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research. Today, we are looking out to 2030 to estimate what we expect the impact of digital assets could be on global wholesale banking. It's Monday, May 18th at 3:30 PM in New York. We live in a world where money can move instantly. A payment or transfer can happen in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, in real time. But much of the financial system runs on older networks for moving cash and securities. These networks are what the industry calls rails. We expect clients will be looking for faster settlement across global banking services, driving the industry to adopt digital asset rails over the next decade. We see three key drivers pushing this today. Number one, market support is out there for fintechs, which is increasing their competitiveness. Number two, global legislation and regulation is clarifying requirements for enabling digital asset services led by the U.S. with the Genius Act in 2025, and with the forward motion being made on the Clarity Act in 2026. The third driver of digital asset transformation is that exchanges are extending hours and moving towards offering 24/7 capabilities over the next several years. Now, we expect digital assets will have two major impacts on global wholesale banks. First, as banks lean into servicing crypto assets, we see the potential for an additional $1.5 [billion] to $8 billion in revenues in 2030, which adds up to 1 percent to our global wholesale banks revenue forecast of $770 billion in 2030. Second, impact on global wholesale banks is a risk. There is risk when money is in motion, and money could be set in motion as clients migrate revenues from traditional asset rails to digital asset rails. We anticipate this could impact $21 billion to $82 billion of revenues in 2030, primarily in cross-border payments, liquidity management, collateral management, businesses. Now, while this transformation is likely to impact the industry over the next decade as more services go digital, we expect several catalysts in the second half will focus investor attention on these changes now. What are those catalysts? Number one, Clarity Act. The Clarity Act passing Congress would open up the door for wholesale banks to service crypto asset class more holistically. Second catalyst, the DTCC, which is a major infrastructure player for securities markets in the U.S. The DTCC will be adding tokenized products in the fall of 2026. And then lastly, Nasdaq and NYSE are planning to extend trading hours on December 6th, 2026, to 23 hours by five days a week. Now, what should investors make of all of this? Number one critical to understand how the investments that you have today are positioned for this transformation. Are managements protecting their strengths by developing capabilities for an ecosystem increasingly run on digital rails? 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.
• Investing Through an Uneasy Boom 15.05.2026 5Min.

  Our Chief Cross-Asset Strategist Serena Tang explains why investors should stay constructive in 2026, even as oil prices and geopolitics add volatility. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Cross-Asset Strategist. Today: our mid-year market outlook across regions and asset classes. It’s Friday, May 15th, at 10am in New York. If you’ve winced at the gas pump, hesitated before booking a flight, or checked your 401(k) a little more often than usual, you already understand the forces driving markets now. Energy prices and geopolitics are creating real uncertainty. But underneath that uncertainty, companies are still investing, earnings are still holding up, and AI is becoming one of the biggest spending cycles in the global economy. That’s why our message for the rest of 2026 is – be constructive, not complacent. Let’s start with the constructive part. Across markets, macro and micro fundamentals support risk assets. In the U.S., growth should hold up. For investors, this suggests favoring stocks over core fixed income and developed-market equities — especially the U.S. – in particular. Our U.S. Equity Strategist’s S&P 500 target for mid-2027 stands at 8,300, supported by expected earnings growth of 23 percent in 2026 and 12 percent in 2027. The momentum in returns is coming from improving earnings. Now, a striking data point: the median S&P 500 company delivered a 6 percent earnings surprise in the first quarter – the strongest in four years. Earnings revisions breadth also improved sharply. AI explains a major part of that strength. It has become a capital spending story – and increasingly, a credit market story. A year ago, we projected combined capex for the biggest hyperscalers at around [$]450 billion in both 2026 and 2027. Now, that estimate has moved to roughly [$]800 billion in 2026 and [$]1.16 trillion in 2027. AI infrastructure – data centers, power, chips, networks – should shape equities, credit, rates and even commodities for years to come. But here’s where the not complacent part matters. There’s another side to the AI boom. Building all those data centers, chips, power systems and networks requires significant investment. And companies won’t fund all of it with cash. Many will borrow. That means more corporate bonds coming to market, especially from high-quality U.S. companies. Even if those companies look financially healthy, investors may demand better terms when they have so many new bonds to choose from. So, AI can support earnings, but it can also put some pressure on credit markets. Energy prices also pose major risk. Our base case assumes de-escalation and a gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but the range of possible outcomes looks unusually wide. Oil prices and the duration of the Middle East supply shock are the single largest variable in our outlook. Higher oil effectively acts like a tax on consumers and businesses alike. That’s why we recommend a balanced allocation with a risk-on tilt: overweight equities, underweight core fixed income, and hold other fixed income, commodities and cash at benchmark weight. Within equities, we favor the U.S. because earnings look strong and the risk-reward looks better than in other regions. Europe and Japan also offer upside, but Europe has more exposure to energy disruptions, and emerging markets lack a broad macro and micro narrative despite pockets of strength. This is all to say the cycle has not run out of road. But the road looks bumpier, narrower and more energy-sensitive than it looked a few months ago. 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.
• Global Growth Faces an Energy Test 14.05.2026 5Min.

  Our Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Strategy Seth Carpenter gives his midyear outlook, highlighting why AI investment and U.S. consumers remain key growth engines amid energy shocks. 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.  Today, I want to talk about our mid-year outlook that was just published.  It's Thursday, May 14th at 10am in New York.  Oil, AI, and the consumer now sit at the center of our global economic outlook. With AI and the consumer driving economic momentum in the U.S., the key question is whether the energy shock stays manageable or changes the path for inflation, central banks, and recession risks.  We have had and maintain a fundamentally constructive view on global growth, but the energy shock brings unusually high uncertainty. It boosts inflation, it weighs on growth, and it widens the range of outcomes. We forecast global real GDP growth at 3.2 percent in 2026 and 3.4 percent in 2027. That is relative to about 3.5 percent in 2025.  So, in our baseline, growth slows modestly this year and then stabilizes and recovers. Writing a forecast is always hard but knowing what to assume about oil prices is even harder than ever now. Our base case assumes that crude returns to about $90 a barrel by the end of this year and declines further in 2027.  If, and I do mean if, that happens, the global economy can likely absorb the shock. But if the current situation persists and we do not see a normalization of shipments of oil, it could spell recession. That scenario probably sees oil prices surge through $150 a barrel, but more importantly, we could shift from a price shock to a volume shock.  The big risk is physical shortages and supply chain disruptions because it's not just energy, it's also petrochemical inputs to manufacturing and other items. Higher prices slow activity; shortages can stop it.  Exposure to the energy shock differs sharply across regions. Among the major economies, China looks the least exposed. Europe is the most exposed, and the U.S. sits in between. China built up substantial stockpiles of oil, and part of why the global oil market has not seen higher oil prices so far is that China has cut back on those imports dramatically.  Europe, on the other hand, typically faces faster energy passthrough, meaning energy prices show up much more quickly in household bills, business costs, and ultimately inflation. And Europe is a net importer of energy, so the consideration goes beyond oil to include natural gas.  The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum products, but U.S. consumers will feel the pinch at the gas pump. But even with that in mind, U.S. growth continues to support global growth, thanks largely to strong AI-related capital spending and consumer spending that's being buoyed by the top end of the wealth distribution. We expect that momentum to continue and then ultimately to broaden out. And so we forecast U.S. real GDP growth at about 2.25 in 2026 but rising to about 2.5 percent in 2027. Both of those are up from the 2.1 percent we saw last year.  And AI CapEx sits at the center of this U.S. outlook. It includes data centers, power infrastructure, information processing equipment, software. Over time, we think this investment momentum is part of what allows a broadening out of business investment beyond AI.  That said, the energy shock has triggered global inflation. We're looking for global headline inflation to rise notably almost to 3 percent in 2026 before coming back off in 2027. But while oil and gas prices are pushing headline inflation higher, the pass-through to core, depending on the economy, seems to remain mostly limited. By 2027, we look for those effects to fade. And combined with somewhat slower growth this year, underlying inflation should soften again.  As inflation risks have moved higher, though, central banks have generally become less accommodative. We expect the Fed to now stay on hold all the way through 2026, and then if inflation really does come down, to be able to cut twice in the first half of 2027. We're looking for the ECB to hike twice this year as it grapples with this energy-led inflation, but then reverse course next year in 2027. The Bank of Japan, which had already been hiking policy, probably is set to continue that gradual hiking path.  Looking forward to the second half of this year though, global growth still does have a foundation, and the U.S. is a big part of that. AI investment and consumer spending are all what's driving the economy for now. But the energy outlook will determine how bumpy that path gets.  Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy this show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.
• What to Expect From the U.S.-China Summit 13.05.2026 4Min.

  Our Head of Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore goes through the main topics on the table during the meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi: Taiwan, tariffs and the Iran conflict. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley.  Today, I'll be talking about expectations heading into the U.S.-China summit this week and what investors should be watching.  It's Wednesday, May 13h at 11am in Copenhagen.  Despite the importance of the upcoming summit, we think expectations for tangible progress should remain relatively modest. Reporting ahead of the meeting indicates that the discussions will focus on trade, Taiwan arms sales, and the U.S.-Iran conflict. Across the board, our base case remains an extension of the current truce with limited areas of relaxation. That's probably enough to support modest upside for risk assets in China, but likely short of the kind of breakthrough needed for a material re-rating in risk premia.  Let's start with trade. We think the discussion here is likely to skew toward phase one style commitments rather than structural policy shifts. That could include additional Chinese purchases in sectors like agriculture and aerospace, or things like high-level trade and investment pledges. Or even limited tariff relief in key areas designed to demonstrate cooperation but without fundamentally changing the competitive dynamic between the two countries.  What we don't expect is a meaningful unilateral tariff reduction from the U.S. side heading into the summit. Remember, China still faces an effective tariff rate of around 30 percent, and it benefited the most of all our trading partners when the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs earlier this year. As we noted at the time, that lowered its effective rate by roughly 7 percentage points.  Secondly, we think the administration continues to view higher tariff levels on China versus other trading partners as a strategic imperative. Said differently, the administration appears committed to maintaining some degree of structural separation between China and other trading allies like Europe, Japan, and South Korea. We think that means a large-scale tariff reset is unlikely in the wake of the summit or in the lead up.  On Taiwan, we also see limited room for meaningful policy change. President Trump has publicly referenced Taiwan arms sales in recent comments, but we think a major concession from China would be needed for a meaningful departure from many years of U.S. policy precedent.  The third issue on the agenda is the Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz. Reopening the strait is likely the area of greatest uncertainty heading into the summit. The extent to which the U.S. will ask for China's help on this front and whether or not that request will be granted remains a key unknown.  But there's also a technology dimension here worth watching closely. While public reporting indicates that export controls are likely not formally part of the talks, we see a possibility that the discussion could occur, in particular in the context of rare earth relaxations from China's side.  Concessions on rare earth controls likely require some corresponding U.S. flexibility on advanced semiconductor exports, given the chips for rare earths equilibrium that we think underpins the strategic bilateral relationship. We think that's largely what's disincentivized both sides from escalating in recent months.  So, what should markets watch most closely? Aside from tangible trade arrangements or a formal extension of the truce, we think the tone will be crucial. Language around technology cooperation or an agreement to continue negotiating will be critical in assessing how both sides plan on managing the relationship moving forward.  Remember, this event is one of several potential meetings this year, so symbolic commitments toward broader structural concessions in the future could matter. For now, we think the most likely outcome is continued stabilization rather than a transformational reset. That's still constructive for markets at the margin, but probably not enough to eliminate the geopolitical overhang that continues to shape investor positioning globally. Thanks for listening. As a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.
• How Your Body Data Could Reshape Sectors 12.05.2026 5Min.

  Our U.S. Healthcare Analyst Erin Wright discusses how health tracking and preventive diagnostics could influence healthcare costs and different industries, from fitness to retail. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Erin Wright, Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Healthcare Services Analyst.  Today – the emergence of the self-directed patient and its implications.  It’s Tuesday, May 12th at 10am in New York.  A blood test ordered from your phone. A wearable that tracks your sleep or nudges you to move, recover, hydrate, or rethink last night’s dinner. Preventive health is moving out of the clinic and into everyday life. And that shift is becoming an investable theme.  In essence, healthcare is moving from reactive to proactive. Instead of waiting for symptoms, more consumers are using lab tests, wearables, imaging, and digital tools to spot some these risks earlier. And this shift reaches well beyond healthcare.  On our estimates, the U.S. spends about [$]3.4 trillion annually on chronic diseases, including lost economic productivity. About [$]1.4 trillion of 2024 spend was tied to preventable disease. So the big investment question is: can earlier detection and behavior change bend the cost curve?  We think expanded preventive testing, screening, and monitoring can help avoid roughly [$]200 billion to [$]800 billion of U.S. healthcare spend by 2050. That assumes preventive testing reduces preventable disease costs by about 10% to 30% based on our analysis.  Direct-to-consumer lab testing lets people order lab tests directly, often online, without starting with a traditional doctor visit. We see this as a roughly $4 billion U.S. market, which has more than doubled since 2021. And it’s no longer niche. Our AlphaWise survey found that about 34% of respondents completed a voluntary wellness lab test in the past three years. Among users, the average was 3.2 tests, suggesting this is not just a one-time behavior. The most common test was a general health profile, used by about 45 percent of recent testers.  Wearables are the other part of the story. Our survey found that 41 percent of respondents currently use a wearable or fitness device, while another 22 percent are interested in getting one. More importantly, people are acting on the data. 34 percent of wearable users today regularly change behaviors or decisions based on their device, and 52 percent even sometimes do so, based on our survey.  That creates a feedback loop. A wearable might flag poor sleep. A lab test might show elevated glucose. A digital health tool might suggest changes to diet or exercise, or follow-up care. Over time, prevention starts to feel less like an annual event and more like a daily habit.  The sector implications are broad. In healthcare, more testing may initially actually increase utilization as people follow up on results. But over time, earlier detection could obviously support lower-cost of care and better chronic disease management. That also aligns with value-based care, where providers and payers are rewarded for better outcomes and lower total costs, not just simply more services.  In consumer sectors, better health tracking could shape food choices, reduce demand for some indulgent categories, and support products tied to hydration, lower sugar, protein, and functional benefits. Fitness may also benefit as gyms evolve from just workout destinations into broader wellness platforms, with recovery and coaching, and preventive health services layered in. Imaging is another emerging area, as screening shifts from reactive diagnostics toward earlier disease detection.  Of course, there is some risk that these health tracking and consumer-driven diagnostics trends could still prove to be a wellness craze rather than the new normal. Out-of-pocket costs, privacy concerns, inconsistent interpretations, and limited repeat testing are all real issues. But consumers are clearly taking more control of their health and increasingly asking, “What can I learn before I get sick?”  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.
• Why AI Funding Is So Price-Insensitive 11.05.2026 4Min.

  Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets explains the economic theory behind the unwavering spending on AI infrastructure. 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, a uniquely price insensitive development. It's Monday, May 11th at 2pm in London. Elasticity is one of the first concepts that they teach in economics, and for good reason. It's the idea that our sensitivity to the price of something differs from item to item. If the price of pizza goes up, for example, you may decide to go out for burgers. But if the price for something essential, like electricity, or deeply desired, like tickets to see your favorite artist perform; well, if those go up a lot, you're probably going to complain, but also end up paying anyway. This latter category is what we would call inelastic. The demand for these items holds up even as the price increases, and maybe if the price increases quite a bit. And that is becoming very relevant as we all debate the AI build-out. It's not an exaggeration that the investment in AI, chips, power, and datacenters is at the center of many market conversations. It's supporting U.S. growth despite a sharp slowdown in job creation. It's supporting stock market earnings, even as uncertainty over the Iran conflict continues to percolate. Part of this importance is just the sheer size of this build-out. We estimate about $800 billion of investment by large U.S. technology companies this year, almost double their spending last year and triple their spending in 2024. But it's not just the size, it's the idea that this investment may happen almost whatever the cost. Specifically, we're looking at a desire by multiple large companies to build out large AI infrastructure all at the same time, and that's increased the price of these components. The copper needed to wire together that data center? Well, it's up about 40 percent in the last year. A gas turbine to power it? Up 50 percent. The memory to run it? It's up 150 to 300 percent over the last year alone. And yet, despite these extremely large price increases, the demand to build in AI has been accelerating. Our forecasts for 2026 spending have been consistently revised higher. And that $800 billion that we think is spent this year is set to be dwarfed by $1.1 trillion of estimated spending in 2027, based on the view of my Morgan Stanley colleagues. This idea of inelasticity or price insensitivity extends even to the costs of financing the spending. Debt costs for these companies have increased this year, and yet they continue to issue at a record pace. A quick aside as to why all this spending may be price insensitive or inelastic. AI is seen by these companies as, without exaggeration, maybe the most important technology in a decade. These companies have financial resources and the patience to wait it out, and they see gains to those who can figure out AI technology, even if the winner is not yet clear. The inelastic nature of the AI theme is a classic good news, bad news story. To the positive, it suggests real commitment to this technology and that spending won't easily be shaken by outside events. That should help buttress overall growth and should also support earnings this year – a core view of Mike Wilson and our U.S. equity strategy team. But there are also risks. It remains to be seen what returns can be generated from all of this historic investment. Robust demand for items, even as their price goes up, may cause those prices to increase even further. That's inflation happening at a time when core inflation measures are already well above the Federal Reserve's target. And if companies are less sensitive to the cost of their borrowing to fund AI, well, other companies could find their cost dragged wider in sympathy. We continue to expect record supply and modest widening in the U.S. corporate bond market. 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 tell a friend or colleague about us today.
• The New Playbook for Real Estate Net Lease Investing 08.05.2026 11Min.

  As real estate values reset and cap rates widen, net lease is back in focus—but the approach has changed. Ron Kamdem and Hank D’Alessandro explain. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Ron Kamdem: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ron Kamdem, Head of U.S. REITs and Commercial Real Estate Research.  Hank D'Alessandro: And I'm Hank D’Alessandro, Managing Director on Morgan Stanley's Real Estate Investing Team and Vice Chairman of Private Credit.  Ron Kamdem: Today: a part of real estate that's changing fast and drawing fresh attention from investors. Net lease investing.  It's Friday, May 8th at 10am in New York.  You might not think you invest in net leases. But there's a good chance you do, especially if you have money in a pension fund or another income generating vehicle. Net leases are the kinds of long-term lease assets that can help generate steady, predictable income.  They are no longer a sleepy corner of the real estate market. In fact, they're changing in some really interesting ways.  Ron Kamdem: So, Hank, for listeners who know the term but may not know the structure, what exactly is net lease investing? And why does it tend to come up more often when markets get more uncertain?  Hank D'Alessandro:   At a high level, net lease investing is typically associated with long-term leases that can offer durable income streams; typically growing streams, which is why it's often seen as a more defensive part of real estate investing. We see that when investors are thinking more carefully about geopolitical risks, market volatility or say portfolio resilience, this durable cash flow derived from mission critical assets and long lease durations with fixed annual rent bumps can become especially attractive to investors.  Also, with higher inflation likely, net leases are generally insulated from increases in expenses given these are the responsibility of tenants. But what's important today is the net lease is broader than many people realize, both in terms of the property types involved and the range of investors participating in the space.  Ron Kamdem:   Let's stay on that idea of a broader market for a moment, because one of the biggest shifts has been the growing role of private capital in the space. What are you seeing there and why does it matter?  Hank D'Alessandro: Well, listen, Ron, there's no question. The role of private capital has grown substantially, including through joint ventures and public real estate vehicles. That matters because it tells you that the sector is attracting a wider range of investors than it has in the past, such as pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds. And retail investors are increasingly investing either through traditional locked up funds or through semi-liquid funds. But it can also change the competitive landscape and can influence how capital gets allocated across the opportunity set.  Thus, one's approach going forward from an analysis perspective will need to evolve. More broadly, it's a sign that net lease is being viewed as highly relevant in today's market, not just as a legacy category within real estate.  Ron Kamdem: And that's an important distinction that you make right there, because not all investors are approaching these assets the same way. So, when private capital comes into the space, what separates their underwriting approach from another? And we hear all the time about private credit. How does that play into this?  Hank D'Alessandro: Well, Ron, you know, as we discussed previously, the competitive landscape is changing and therefore underwriting is absolutely critical in this part of the cycle. And so, we believe underwriting both tenant credit, of course, is very important. But we equally analyze the real estate underwriting because we believe that real estate can be a real differentiator over time – both in terms of returns and risk profile.  We think that strong real estate underwriting with strong tenant credit underwriting, both enhances returns over time and reduces risks. So, therefore, that matters a lot. We also believe that by focusing equally on the real estate underwriting, you get a fuller picture of the risk and value, especially as net lease expands into newer property types.  It is an easy nuance to miss, but we believe this distinction is becoming much more important differentiator in how investors assess opportunities in the sector today. And I believe that the most successful managers will do a good job underwriting both tenant credit and real estate. So, Ron, for a long time, many investors thought of net lease primarily as a retail story. How much has that changed?  Ron Kamdem: Well, that's changed quite a bit. If I take you back 20 to 30 years ago when you thought of net lease, you thought of a convenience store that's, you know, 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. But today, that opportunity has expanded well beyond retail and there's much more attention now on industrial assets. And even increasing discussions around areas like data centers.  I'll give you an example. Realty income made its entry into the data center vertical in November 2023 with a $200 million build to suit JV. That shift matters because it shows net lease evolving alongside where demand and capital are moving.  It also means the sector is becoming more connected to larger structural trends in the economy, rather than being viewed through one traditional lens. At the same time as the mix broadened, investors have to be selective because not every new category will have the same long-term profile that we're used to. So, as investors look at some of these newer areas, where do you see the best opportunities, Hank? And where would you be more cautious?  Hank D'Alessandro:  So first, opportunities. The industrial segment has clearly become a major area of focus. This sector benefits from growing e-commerce penetration fueled by AI, reshoring of manufacturing, and increased defense spending. The ability to acquire mission critical distribution centers in top tier logistics markets or advanced manufacturing assets in innovation clusters is particularly appealing in today's macro backdrop.  Another area that we find very compelling is medical outpatient buildings where the aging demographics can support long-term demand. So, we have great conviction on both of those.  Now, turning to area where we're more cautious. There's been a lot of attention on data centers, you know, as you previously mentioned. But that's an area where investors really need to think carefully about long-term durability. Questions around obsolescence, technological change and whether certain assets fit a true buy and hold strategy are very relevant and need to be considered carefully by investors.  So, maybe to sum up, the opportunity set is definitely broadening, but selectivity in terms of location, asset type and asset specifications remain essential.  So, Ron, the idea of linking property types back to long-term trends feels especially important right now. How do you connect this conversation to the key secular themes Morgan Stanley research is tracking this year. AI and tech diffusion. The future of energy, the multipolar world, and societal impacts. And can you offer a few examples?  Ron Kamdem:   There's a couple ways that net lease connects to these broader themes. The first, which is probably the most obvious, is technology diffusion and the future of energy comes through in areas such as datacenters, and that's been a key focus for public investors.  When you think about societal change – that's relevant for sectors tied to demographics like medical outpatient buildings, where you know people go get different services. And multipolar world theme matters because deglobalization and geopolitical fragmentation. Or influencing how investors think about resilience, location, and portfolio construction, which is driving incremental demand for industrial real estate linked to supply chain shifts and defense spending.  So, this is no longer just a sector evolving on its own, it's becoming more closely tied to these macro issues, shaping investment decisions more broadly. And once you widen the lens to that macro backdrop, the conversation naturally becomes more global.  In fact, we saw realty income now generates 19 percent of rents across nine European countries with more than $15 billion invested since 2019. Given this, Hank, how should investors think about net lease and adjacent opportunities outside of the U.S.?  Hank D'Alessandro:   The global angle is clearly becoming more relevant. There's growing interest in Europe and the U.K. And one area that comes to mind in this context is retail parks, where rents have reset, yields are wider, and tenant resilience has improved.  Thinking more broadly, international markets can give investors a wider set of ways to think about real estate opportunities tied to the same themes that we've discussed. And add to diversification, as macro drivers continue to diverge and geopolitical risks remain elevated. Even when structures or sector exposures differ from the U.S., which undoubtedly they will, the bigger point is that investors are increasingly valuing opportunities through a global lens.  Ron Kamdem: So, if we pull all this together, what looks like a simple-income oriented category is actually becoming much more nuanced. As we wrap up, Hank, what's the main message you want investors to take away about net lease today?  Hank D'Alessandro: You know, I believe the main takeaway is that net lease remains relevant because of its defensive qualities, and predictable contractual cash flows derived from long-term leases. But the story is becoming more nuanced, requiring a granular focus on the credit, and importantly, the underlying real estate.  With real estate values down 20 to 25 percent from peak levels, replacement cost has elevated, which is keeping supply muted and net lease cap rates wide relative to the last 10 years. This is a very attractive entry point for investors.  Private capital is playing a bigger role, no question. The asset mix is shifting beyond retail, towards areas like industrial. Investors are actively debating the long-term role of newer categories such as advanced manufacturing and data centers. There are selective opportunities to think more globally, which is exciting.  Ron Kamdem: Great. That's very helpful. Hank, thanks for taking the time to talk.  Hank D'Alessandro: Great speaking with you, Ron.  Ron Kamdem: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen. And share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.
• Special Encore: AI’s Next Big Leap 07.05.2026 10Min.

  Original Release Date: April 28, 2026 Tom Wigg and Stephen Byrd discuss the accelerating pace of AI breakthroughs, the forces driving them and why the next phase of development may look very different from anything we’ve seen so far. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Tom Wigg: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Tom Wigg, Head of Specialty Sales in the Americas at Morgan Stanley, and a sector specialist in Technology, Media and Telecom. We wake up every day to new AI product releases, so it’s easy to lose sight of the unprecedented non-linear improvement in AI capabilities. But things are about to get weird. It’s Tuesday, April 28th at 8am in New York. The market has been thinking about AI in linear terms. But we need to reframe that assumption of only incremental improvement and think about exponential improvement. That was my takeaway from a conversation with Stephen Byrd, Global Head of Thematic and Sustainability Research at Morgan Stanley. In our conversation, we zeroed in on Stephen’s bull case for broader AI model improvements. Tom Wigg: First, I want to talk about one obsession that you’ve been writing about for the last several months – is this idea that we’re going to see nonlinear improvements in the frontier models coming out this spring. Stephen Byrd: Yes. Tom Wigg: There’s been, you know, some big headlines around new models, benchmarks coming out publicly. Is this, you know, your bull case playing out on these models? And what are the implications? Stephen Byrd: Yes! Absolutely, Tom. So we have, to your point, we are obsessed. And I know I’m not shy about that – with the nonlinear rate of AI improvement. It is the most important impact to so many stocks that I can think of in the sense that it can impact all industries, all business models. So, what we’ve been saying for some time is, if you look back over the last couple of years at the relationship between the amount of compute used to train these LLMs and the capabilities, we have a very clear scaling law. And approximately the law is, if you increase the training compute by 10x, the capabilities of the models go up by 2x. Now, as you and I’ve talked about this a lot; just meditate on that for a moment. I think things are about to get weird in the sense that on the positive side, we’re going to see all kinds of underappreciated capabilities across many industries. So this disruption discussion, I think, is going to spread, but it’s also going to require investors to, kind of, be more thoughtful about what they do with that concept. Meaning you can’t sell everything. In the sense that AI will disrupt some businesses. I actually think this is healthy in some ways because now it forces investors to really look at each business model and assess which is going to get disrupted, which can get supported and enabled by AI, which are immune. Because there are some business models that actually are immune. But essentially from here, Tom, I’d say we are expecting through the spring and summer to see multiple models that are able to perform a much greater percentage of the economy at better levels of accuracy at incredibly low cost. Which I know you and I have talked a lot about the cost of actually doing this work from the LLMs. This is massive. This is going to impact so many industries. I think this is all to the good for the AI infrastructure plays because it shows the importance of getting more intelligence out into the world. Tom Wigg: So, you mentioned the constraints we’re seeing across compute, memory and power. It seems like most of the CEOs of the labs and hyperscalers are talking about this. Investors are bullish in terms of the ownership in, you know, memory, optical, semi-cap, et cetera. But the question I’m getting more recently is around what’s the ROI on all this spending. And does the market action in these hyperscalers, which have been pretty bearish year-to-date, force a cut on CapEx? So, maybe if you can marry that with what you’re picking up on the ground in terms of compute spend and whether the frenzy still continues, you know, versus the ROI? And, like, what could happen? Stephen Byrd: Yeah. The short answer – I’m going to go through detail – is I think the bullishness is going to get more bullish over the coming months. And let me walk you through a couple of the mathematics and then just what I’m seeing on the ground to your point, Tom. So the mathematics. We have a token economics model that looks from the perspective of a hyperscaler or an LLM developer in terms of – if they sell their token at a certain price and you fully load the cost of a data center and all associated costs, financing, you name it – in what are the returns? And the bottom line is the returns are excellent. The other element we spend a lot of work on, and you and I talk a lot about, is the demand for compute. In this world where the LLMs are increasing in capability and the token usage goes way up with agentic AI, video world models, all that stuff, we think that there is a massive shortage of compute. So, if you’re lucky enough to be a hyperscaler with the compute, with the power, we think that they will have a lot of pricing power on the tokens. Let me explain why we see price power on the tokens. Now I’m going to flip to the perspective of an adopter. Let me give you just rough mathematics. There was a study last year from one of the big labs showing that on average, an enterprise user using an LLM might be able to replace work that would take about one and a half hours from a human. That would save about $55 of cost. A million tokens, depends on whether you’re looking at input or output – but let’s just call it $5 for a million tokens. The average usage case today for a fairly complex agentic task in an enterprise setting is in the tens of thousands of tokens. Okay? So let’s just do that math again. $55 of savings. A million tokens cost $5, and a typical agentic usage is far less than the million tokens today, though that will accelerate. The economics are a home run for adopters. So, we’re in a situation where compute is very scarce. I see pricing power all over the place for those who have the compute and have the power. Tom Wigg: So, when you put it like that, Stephen, it seems so inevitable and obvious. But I wonder why the hyperscalers are trading the way they are? And when do they see the revenue inflection you’re talking about? Is this like a stay tuned kinda 2026 event? Is this something we have to wait for for 2027-2028? Like, how do you think this flows through to the extent that the market will get more comfortable that all this free cash flow pressure is worth it on the other side? Stephen Byrd: Yeah. This is, in short, I think this is a 2026 event. But let me dive into that because what you just asked is so important for so many stocks. So, let’s talk through this. The capabilities of the models are advancing so fast that the average corporate user is not yet keeping up. There is this gap. But that will happen quickly, and we’re seeing signs from these labs of revenue at the lab level that is accelerating. So that’s a good sign. What we’re seeing, though, among fast adopters is those adopters who really understand the capabilities are quickly realizing just how economically beneficial there is. An example, one of my best friends founded a software company many years ago. Last month was – that was the last month in which his programmers wrote code. They’re done with writing code. The efficiency benefits for his business are absolutely massive. But he feels like he’s just scratching the surface, and he’s about as technically capable as anyone I know. He has two PhDs in the subject matter. He’s very, very good. So long way to say that we’re living in almost two worlds where the fast adopters will show what’s possible. The average utilization for enterprises will still take some time. But I do think that the market will react to what they see from the fast adopters in the sense of – the tangible economic benefits are so big. Now, on the ground, what I’m seeing on the infrastructure side, my friends in power tell me that a couple months ago is when they saw the sense of urgency from the AI community go up a couple of notches for them to get the infrastructure they need. So they saw this explosion in compute coming. In the last two months, the weekly usage of tokens according to OpenRadar is up a couple hundred percent in a couple months. So, I do think we’re seeing this. So, this is; it’s happening quickly. What I would say is the market will have these signposts in every industry of early adopters showing this benefit. I think that’s enough for us to start to get bullish. We also… I just think when you look at the demand for compute, the compute numbers need to go up. And with that, you know, everything in the AI value chain, infrastructure value chain, the volumes need to go up. Tom Wigg: One bear case that I wanted to interrogate was – there’s one view that, yes, there’s a token explosion right now. But it’s because the first use case is coding. Which is inherently, you know, very developer-friendly and token-intensive relative to other knowledge work. Can you talk about, you know, whether you subscribe to that? Or whether the token intensity will be as high or lower as this expands to other areas of knowledge work in the next several years? Stephen Byrd: Yeah, it’s a great question. The short version is that, yes, it’s true that software usage is more token intensive. However, what we’re going to be seeing – we’re starting to see it – is in almost every knowledge-based job, we’re going to move to agentic AI. And when we do that, you tend to see an explosion in compute. Let me walk you through the numbers. There are a couple studies that show essentially when you go from a query-based usage of LLMs to an agentic use for any occupation, you see about a 10x increase in token usage per use of those models. And you can see why. I’ve anecdotes of some of my friends who are newer to this – who set their agents loose overnight to do non-coding work. And in the morning they get some pretty amazing results. But they also used a lot more tokens than they’d expected … (laughs) Tom Wigg: And a five grand credit card bill? Stephen Byrd: Exactly. It’s like maybe next time you put a few parameters around that. But long way to say, it’s agentic across every workflow that I can think of that will still result in an explosion in token demand. Tom Wigg: It’s definitely a good idea to put some parameters around your agentic workflow. My thanks to Stephen for that conversation. And thank you for listening. Let us know what you think of the show by leaving us a review where you listen. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or a colleague about us today.
• How Long Can Markets Ignore the Oil Supply Shock? 06.05.2026 12Min.

  Despite the historical energy disruption from the Iran conflict, stocks are back to record highs. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets and our Head of Commodity Research Martijn Rats discuss different views and fundamentals driving 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. Martijn Rats: I'm Martijn Rats, Head of Commodity Research at Morgan Stanley. Andrew Sheets: Today: oil, oil inventories, and the price at the pump. It's Wednesday, May 6th, at 2pm in London. Martijn, it's great to talk to you. We remain in this very unique market where on the one hand, the energy market is severely disrupted. On the other hand, we're making new all-time highs in the stock market. And part of this debate is a creeping sense that maybe the energy market is just a lot more resilient than many people initially thought. So, let's just jump right into it. As you look at the current state of the world, the state of things, how are you seeing the energy market at the moment? Martijn Rats: There are definitely two views in the market. I would say commodity specialists, oil traders, people that trade oil and gas equities for a living, tend to focus on the size of the supply shock. And it is neither hyperbole nor disputed that the size of the supply shock is the largest in the history of the oil market. We have the statistical data to back that up. That is not a controversial statement. But at the same time, the other view in the market, generally held by your generalist investors who invest across many markets. They tend to focus on the likelihood or possibility that this supply shock might also be uniquely short. It was there all of a sudden, from one day to the next, the strait was closed. It felt a bit man-made, so to say. It was an outcome of a political decision, and that can also be undecided. And so, this is – the to-ing and fro-ing in the market is; on the one hand, this shock is very, very large. But the other hand it may also be very, very short. Now we went into this supply shock, arguably well-prepared. In the sense that during the course of like late 2024, all of 2025, and the very early part of 2026, we were telling a story of oversupply surplus. And on top of that, given the military buildup was going on in January and February, a lot of countries in the Arabian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait – visibly put out a lot of oil at sea. So, in the oversupply of 2025, we put oil in storage in lots of places that we can't always see. But that seems very likely. Oil in the water was very, very high. So, we have been living off these buffers, and that has helped. And then, yeah, at any point in time, there were good enough reasons to assume that on a timeframe of a couple of weeks, this would largely be resolved. We would eat into these buffers, draw some inventory. And it has been hard for the market then to really capitalize the size of the supply shock and say, "Yeah, really oil prices need to spike very, very high." And in that sense, we’re left with this significant supply shock, but we haven't taken out the highs that we saw in 2022, for example. Andrew Sheets: So maybe a way to think about this, right, is that if we imagined all of that oil as sitting in a big tank. We've kind of stopped a lot of the flow into the top of the tank as the Strait of Hormuz has remained closed. But oil's still able to drain out of the bottom, kind of, like normal because that tank is being drained. Those inventories have been drawn down. Maybe that's a quite a crude analogy, to forgive the pun. But how long can that last? I mean, if we think about these inventories, if we think about the speed of which they're being drawn down; and I think that's an important point that you mentioned, that these inventories were unusually high going in. But they're obviously not unlimited. Where does that stand? And I guess, you know, what is the limit of that? How long can those inventory draws last? Martijn Rats: Yeah, yeah. To say that this is the billion-dollar question would be understating it, Andrew. It's also a unusually complicated question to answer in the sense that it depends very heavily on the region, on the product that you're looking at. Jet fuel in Europe, NAFTA in Asia, you might see something sooner. But other products in other regions, you know, might take longer. We often don't really know where the operational limitations of inventories are. Globally, we see something like 8 billion barrels of oil in some form of storage. That is an enormous amount. We can't draw that down to zero because a lot of that is there for operational, like working capital type reasons. Just to facilitate the operations of the industry. Is the floor seven? Is the floor six? These things are hard to answer. Andrew Sheets: You’ve got to have some oil in the pipeline to make the pipeline flow… Martijn Rats: Exactly, exactly. You can't operate a refinery if you don't have at least some storage right next to it. It just doesn't work. So, these things are hard to know. But I would say that we are eating through these buffers very, very re-rapidly now. Oil on water has largely normalized and is no longer elevated. We are seeing very large inventory draws across every data point that we have on refined products. Refined products are universally drawing. On crude, the data is more patchy. But we are seeing large inventory draws now coming through in the United States. I would say – and this is partly having worked with this data for a long time and sort of developing some market feel rather than very analytical spreadsheets, so to say. But I would say that if the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz does not resume on the sort of next four to six weeks, we will get very, very tight by June, early summer. And, well, look, I mean, from there, it's simply… You know, if you then were to forecast. You know, project forward from there on. It would be getting tight by August, September. But of course, that's done under the assumption that the flow remains impaired over that period, which I would say most market participants would not assume at the moment. Andrew Sheets: And another point that comes up sometimes, at least in my conversations, is, ‘Oh, but, you know, maybe Venezuelan oil is going to be coming online.’ There's more investment. The U.S. seems very focused on increasing oil output in Venezuela. You know, can that match in any sense the scale of what we've had disrupted here? Martijn Rats: No, that is a complicated issue in the sense that, you know, growing oil production takes time. It takes capital, it takes equipment, it takes a lot of people. Venezuela at the moment, produces a bit more than a million barrels a day. I'd have to say, like, relative to the size of Venezuela's production, the last two monthly data points have actually come in better than expected. But you're talking about 100,000 barrels a day, 200,000 barrels a day, that sort of thing. Relative to a supply shock that is 13-14 million barrels a day. The fastest ever single amount of production growth of any country in any year was 2018. U.S. shale with natural gas liquids included grew 2 million barrels a day in a single year. But yeah, even that… Andrew Sheets: So, 2 million barrels relative to 14 million barrels lost is… Martijn Rats: Yeah, exactly. Andrew Sheets A drop in the bucket.   Martijn Rats: And that had a huge run-up of several years of putting the infrastructure in place to do that. I mean, it…. You don't turn it on a dime either. So no, that remains difficult. Andrew Sheets: So, you know, maybe a dynamic to close with is actually another way that I think people care about the oil price, you know, besides their portfolio – which is they drive. And, you know, you had a great stat in your report that one out of every 11 barrels of oil that's produced ends up in an American car. And the U.S. is a big producer. Its inventories have been drawing down. There are clear signs that the U.S. is exporting a lot of energy, and as a result, gas prices are also going up in the U.S. So, you know, what… If you could just talk a little bit about the move in gasoline and maybe, you know, I think this could be a good segue into this idea of distillates into, kind of, parts of refined product. And how those prices can deviate or not from the barrel of oil we often talk about. And then even just more generally, kind of what is the price at the pump that people might need to think about as you head into the summer – assuming, you know, this conflict is still somewhat uncertain. Martijn Rats: Yeah. So, the United States is very interesting at the moment. In the sense that the regular discourse about the United States is that the United States is energy independent because it is a net oil producer. And at the most aggregate level, that is correct. But that doesn't mean that the United States is not connected to the rest of the world from an oil market perspective. I would say actually it's the opposite. The U.S. oil market is deeply connected to the rest of the world. It is a net exporter because there are very large imports, and there are very large exports, and it just happens so that the exports are a little bit bigger than the imports. So, it's a net exporter. But flows in both directions exist for every product – for crude, for diesel, for gasoline. So, the U.S. should be the last place to have physical disruptions because the supply is close to home. But in the end, it's so connected; that in the end, there's only one global oil price – and we all pay it, including in the United States. Now, because of the deficits at the moment, in Asia, to [an] extent in Europe, there is a very large pool on oil from the United States, and we're seeing that across the board. Crude oil exports were 4 million barrels a day, at the start of the year. They're now running sort of 5.5, even 6 million barrels a day. So, there's a lot of crude being pulled out of the United States. That is partly also the SBR release, the release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But the export's very, very large. Another product where that is also happening is in gasoline. Now, the gasoline market in the United States has a degree of complexity to it in the sense that the U.S. is a big importer of gasoline in the East Coast and the West Coast, but then a big exporter from the Gulf Coast. Andrew Sheets: Hunh! Okay. Yeah. Martijn Rats: Net-net, it's an exporter, but in the East Coast and the West Coast, big, big importer. Now, in Europe, for example, we are normally long gasoline, short diesel. We export our surplus to the U.S. East Coast. But, at the moment, it's tight in Europe, so we're not exporting that much gasoline. So, imports in the United States have dropped a lot. At the same time, Asian customers, Brazilian customers, Mexican customers [are] pulling a lot of gasoline out of the Gulf Coast. And as a result, the net exports are unusually high for this time of the year. On top of that, the Strait of Hormuz issue has tightened the diesel market so much relative to the gasoline market that it is favorable for refineries to maximize their diesel output over their gasoline output. Andrew Sheets: Hmm. And these are decisions you can make in terms of how you crack that barrel in a refinery and split it up. Martijn Rats: Yeah, exactly. Within a relatively narrow window, but you can make tweaks that are significant. Now, normally, we're going into this summer driving season, refineries switch from what we call max diesel to max gasoline. At the moment, they are not doing that. Andrew Sheets: Mm. Martijn Rats: So, you have low gasoline production, and you have large net exports of gasoline. Over the last 11 weeks already, we have seen a very significant, very significant decline in gasoline inventories in the United States. And prices have risen at the pump. The nation's average is now $4.50 per barrel, as of reports this morning. The summer driving season has yet to start. That can become $4.70, $4.80. That can become $5. Above $5 is historically a point where people get, yeah, worried about demand destruction. And it has a real impact. Andrew Sheets: Well, Martijn, I think this remains such an important and interesting story. And even if, you know, it can seem sometimes like the market has moved on to other things, clearly there are a lot of other factors driving the equity market.  It remains pretty historic, pretty significant, and pretty complicated. Also, something that I think, you know, affects the day-to-day spending and lives of a lot of people out there. So, Martijn, again, thank you for taking the time to talk. Martijn Rats: Thank you. Andrew Sheets: And 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.
• AI’s Shift From Thinking to Taking Action 05.05.2026 4Min.

  Our Head of Europe and Asia Technology Research Shawn Kim discusses AI’s move from passive chatbots to active agents—and how this influences tech supply chains. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Shawn Kim, Head of Morgan Stanley’s Europe and Asia Technology Team.  Today: A foundational shift in the development of AI and its broad market implications.  It’s Tuesday, May 5th, at 3pm in London.  Think about the last time you asked a chatbot to write a summary or a draft. Or maybe answer a query. It was probably useful. But you were also still driving the interaction: asking, refining, copying, checking, and moving the work forward.  Now imagine a system that does not just respond, but acts. It remembers what you asked last week, understands your preferences, works across digital tools, plans a workflow, and adapts as circumstances change.  That is the shift from GenAI to agentic AI: from AI that helps with thinking to AI that helps with doing. GenAI is mostly passive. It takes a prompt and produces an answer. Agentic AI is active – less a copilot for one task but an autopilot for multi-step workflows.  The distinction is key because computing requirements are changing. In GenAI, large language models and GPUs handle much of the thinking. GPUs, or graphics processing units, process many calculations in parallel, making them central to modern AI models. In agentic AI, CPU becomes more important. CPUs, or central processing units, coordinate tasks and connect systems to the broader digital infrastructure.  Agentic AI also depends on three stacks: the brain, or the large language model; orchestration, where the CPU manages the doing; and knowledge, which is memory. Memory may be the most important layer. An agent that knows your preferences, documents, tone, and task history becomes more useful over time. That creates a context flywheel. The more context it collects, the more personalized it becomes, and the harder it is to leave.  Typically, in computing, we think of memory as storage, mainly. We need to rethink this. Memory is also continuity. When an AI system can use past experiences, memory becomes a long-term state, shared knowledge, and behavioral grounding.  And that matters because LLMs have fixed context windows. Once a conversation exceeds that window, older content falls off. For simple questions, that may be fine. But for a coding agent working across a large codebase over days or weeks, it is a major limitation. Serious work requires persistent memory, short-term orientation, and active retrieval – remembering prior decisions, understanding changed files, and finding relevant codes without the user pointing to every dependency.  For investors, the implication is clear – agentic AI changes the bottlenecks. We see CPUs as the new bottleneck, with memory seeing the highest content increase. We estimate as much as 60 percent, or $60 billion of incremental CPU total addressable market by 2030, within a total CPU market of more than $100 billion. We also estimate up to 70 percent of incremental DRAM bit shipment tied to this theme.  That makes us more positive on supply chains including memory, foundry, substrates, CPU and memory interface, and capacitors and CPU sockets. These areas benefit from content growth, pricing power, and capacity constraints into 2027.  As AI moves from answering questions to taking actions, investors should watch the infrastructure behind the shift. Because in the agentic era, the next big AI leap may be less about the prompt, but more about the processor.  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.
• Hard Lessons: Rick Rieder 05.05.2026 1Min.

  Introducing a recent episode of Hard Lessons, featuring Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s CIO for Global Fixed Income and Head of the Global Allocation Investment Team, in conversation with Seth Carpenter, Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research at Morgan Stanley.  Watch and listen on your favorite podcast platform.