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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson explains the factors behind stock gains across sectors. 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 why earnings remain the most important variable for equity markets. It's Monday, May 4th at 2pm in New York. So, let’s get after it. The more I think about what’s been driving this market, and the more time I spend with the data, the more I keep coming back to the same conclusion: it’s earnings. Not the headlines, not even the Fed. Earnings are doing the heavy lifting right now. When I look at this reporting season, what stands out isn’t just resilience, it’s strength that’s broader than most people appreciate. The typical company in the S&P 500 is growing earnings at about 16 percent, and the median earnings surprise is running around 6 percent. That’s the strongest we’ve seen in four years. What’s really interesting to me is that this strength is no longer confined to just the biggest tech names. Yes, hyper scalers and semiconductors are still playing a leading role, but the story is expanding. We’re seeing earnings revisions move higher across Financials, Industrials, and Consumer Cyclicals, in particular. That kind of breadth tells me this isn’t just a narrow leadership story; it’s something more sustainable. At the same time, many investors are focused on the geopolitical backdrop, particularly the Iran conflict and what it means for oil, inflation, and supply chains. To be fair, companies are feeling some of that pressure. When you listen to earnings calls, you hear about rising freight costs, tighter supply chains, and higher input prices across industries like chemicals and machinery. But here’s the nuance: those impacts are uneven. They’re not hitting the entire market in the same way. In fact, at the index level, they’re being offset. Energy has become a positive contributor to earnings growth, and the higher-end consumer remains relatively strong. Even with higher fuel costs, we’re not seeing a meaningful pullback in overall consumption – at least not yet. That tells me that we’re not dealing with a classic demand shock. We’re dealing with a redistribution of pressure, and companies are adapting. In many cases, they’re passing through higher costs. Revenue surprises are running above historical norms, which suggests pricing power is improving. Now, of course, earnings aren’t the only piece of the puzzle. Policy still matters, and the shift in rate expectations this year has been meaningful. The Fed has clearly become more concerned about inflation, and the market has repriced expectations to fewer cuts, and maybe even a higher probability of hikes. That repricing is a big reason why valuations corrected so sharply over the past six months. It’s notable that even with that headwind, equities have managed to stabilize, thanks to earnings. When earnings are growing at an above-trend pace, equities can deliver solid returns regardless of whether the Fed is cutting or not. That said, I do think that there’s one area of risk that deserves further attention, and that’s liquidity. We’ve seen periods of funding stress over the past six months, and those moments have coincided with pressure on valuations. The Fed and the Treasury have stepped in at times to stabilize these conditions, helping to reduce bond volatility and support equity multiples. Bottom line, we have already had a meaningful correction in valuations this year with price earnings multiples falling 18 percent from their peak last fall. That adjustment occurred as the market digested the many risks that we have been highlighting. Meanwhile, earnings are not only holding up, they’re accelerating and broadening across sectors. The risks that we’ve all all focused on – geopolitics, oil, supply chains – are real. But they’re being absorbed at the company level. As a result, the price declines were much more modest than the compression in valuations. Meanwhile, monetary policy is providing some headwinds, but it’s not overwhelming the earnings story. Equity markets move on two things: earnings and liquidity. Right now, earnings are more than offsetting the lingering liquidity concerns. In short, earnings growth is greater than the valuation reset. This is classic bull market behavior and as long as that continues, I think the U.S. equity market will grind higher for the rest of the year with intermittent bouts of volatility. 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!

Our Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research Seth Carpenter discusses whether the economy can adapt fast enough to turn AI into a productivity boom rather than a labor market shock. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley. ----- Transcript ----- Seth Carpenter: Welcome to Thoughts in the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research. Today we're going to try to look past the hype and the anxiety around AI and ask what will be the effect on the labor market. It's Friday, May 1st at 10am in New York. Now, odds are that you've used AI to draft an email or summarize a document, maybe learn about a new topic, help plan a trip. The new technology is clearly lowering the cost of certain tasks. And I think the research shows that there are plenty and an increasing number of tasks that AI can do better than most humans. But that's not really the question. What I hear all the time is, ‘Well, if we can get the same amount of output with less labor, then surely millions of people will lose their job.’ I think the same logic also implies that we can just get a lot more output from the economy using all the labor that we have. And the difference between those two views really is at the heart of the debate. So far, I would say the data allow for some cautious optimism. Despite rapid advances in AI capability and evidence that adoption is spreading, the broad labor market indicators still show remarkably little disruption. Economic growth is holding in there. The unemployment rate is not rising rapidly. If anything, it's ticked down recently. Job openings are not soaring, and separations do not suggest that there's systematic weakness in AI exposed industries. Now, productivity data are beginning to show perhaps a bit of AI's positive effects, but they don't show the mass displacement that many people fear. According to our research, industries with higher AI exposures have recorded stronger labor productivity gains, driven mainly by faster output growth rather than fewer hours worked. And that distinction for me is critical. So far, the evidence looks like workers are producing more than firms are cutting back on labor. There's also a physical constraint. AI adoption depends – and will continue to depend – on infrastructure that is still being built. Of the more than $3 trillion in expected data center and related infrastructure CapEx from 2025 through 2028, only about a quarter of that has been deployed so far. The future remains opaque. No two ways about it. The biggest productivity gains from my perspective are likely still ahead of us, and some job losses are likely unavoidable. Earlier, innovation waves unfolded over decades, and AI is moving much faster, compressing the adjustment period. And that does create the central risk to the labor market; that job destruction happens faster than new job creation happens. And so, what our research has been doing is to try to look beyond the immediate effects. Yes, some jobs and tasks will likely be disrupted. But higher productivity can also mean higher incomes. Higher wealth. With higher income and higher wealth can also mean higher spending, which, in turn, drives the economy faster. Inside corporations, new tasks and new roles will likely emerge giving some of the displaced workers somewhere else to go. And even if employment does slow down for a while – and that could put downward pressure on inflation and maybe upward pressure on the unemployment rate – I don't really think policy makers are simply going to sit back on the sidelines. Central banks can respond by trying to stimulate the economy and bring it back towards full employment. This is something that economists call General Equilibrium. We can't look simply at one side of the equation. We have to think about the system as a whole. And I have to say, if monetary policy runs out of room, fiscal policy makers can get into the game as well. Between automatic stabilizers like unemployment benefits and directed targeted government action, there's another way in which the economy could be pushed back to full employment. So, the bigger point is this, AI clearly has a chance to create some labor market disruption, but the economy has all sorts of other systems and levers in place that can pull us back to full employment. And with those buffers in place, any rise in the unemployment rate from AI is probably going to end up being smaller, shorter, and easier to manage – at least for the next couple of years than maybe some of the first pass analysis that I've seen suggests. AI's labor market impact is not predetermined. The debate will almost certainly come down to speed. How fast is AI adoption relative to the economy's ability to adapt? History suggests that productivity ultimately wins. The economy gets bigger and people stay employed. History also tells us that not everyone benefits equally. And more importantly, not every transition is smooth. So, what does that mean? Should we be just blithely optimistic? Absolutely not. For now, the early evidence is reassuring, but the story is still being written. 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 a colleague today.

Capital spending usually signals how a company is positioning itself for the future. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets explains why this metric is getting more attention from investors. 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 capital expenditure is rapidly becoming one of the most important numbers in earning season across asset classes. It's Thursday, April 30th at 2pm in London. This is a high-risk episode in the sense that it may already be obsolete by the time that you hear it. But then again, maybe that's fitting for a discussion of record capital spending on cutting edge technology. We are in the middle of the busiest part of earning season, and yesterday four of the largest companies in the world reported numbers. These companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta – have a combined market cap of nearly $12 trillion. Yet, while the focus of earning season is traditionally about earnings, another line item is rapidly rising in importance. Capital spending on AI infrastructure – the chips, power cooling, and connections that are required to build and run AI models is soaring. And the companies that reported yesterday are at the leading edge of this trend. The first thing about all this spending is simply the scale. For this year alone, Morgan Stanley estimates that it will amount to over $600 billion across the largest U.S. hyperscalers. To put that in perspective, that means just a handful of U.S. tech companies are now set to spend almost as much on capital and equipment this year as every non-technology company in the S&P 500 did in 2025. And as big as that spending is, it's been accelerating. That over 600 billion spending number that we forecast for 2026? Well, a year ago we thought it would be roughly half that, and that estimate was well above consensus at the time. U.S. companies have repeatedly guided their spending higher as they seek to capture the AI opportunity. And we think that continues. By 2028, my Morgan Stanley colleagues estimate that this U.S. hyperscaler capital spending could hit an annual rate of $1 trillion. In other words, as big as these numbers may seem, much of the spending story still lies ahead. All of that investment, both recently and in the future, has big implications. First, one company's spending is another company's revenue, and many of the stock markets recent winners have been directly tied to this historic buildout. As of this recording, U.S. semiconductor stocks have risen over 30 percent this month alone. Second, while these large U.S. tech companies have enormous financial resources, this spending is at a scale that still requires significant borrowing. Our credit strategy teams expect record bond issuance this year, with U.S. tech borrowing a big part of that. And so far, it's playing out. The first quarter was the busiest quarter for U.S. investment grade bond issuance on record. Which brings us back to these recent earnings – and a dilemma that seems negatively skewed for credit relative to equities. If these companies continue to sound confident about their capital spending plans or even raise expectations further, that could support AI suppliers and the broader equity market. But it would mean even more borrowing needs to be absorbed by the corporate bond market, a credit negative. The results we got yesterday certainly hint at a continuation of this trend. On the other hand, if capital spending is guided down, that could undermine a key pillar of recent market strength and broader risk appetite, which could drag credit wider by association. In the near term, the risk reward seems better in other parts of fixed income, such as mortgage-backed securities. The implications of yesterday's results may also extend to the Federal Reserve. As we discussed last week, Kevin Warsh, nominee to be the next Fed Chair, believes that large levels of investment can boost productivity, lowering inflation, and thus justifying lower interest rates. And so, what these large spenders do, how confident they feel about the future, and what all of this spending can ultimately deliver – well, the implications of that may extend even into the monetary policy story. Thank you as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts of the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Still six months out, the U.S. midterm elections are likely to influence government initiatives to deal with higher energy costs. Our Head of Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore and Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discuss how the Congress and the Fed might react. 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. Seth Carpenter: And I'm Seth Carpenter, the firm's Global Chief Economist and Head of Macro Research. Ariana Salvatore: Today we're discussing the run up to the midterm elections and what it could mean for the macro outlook and policy response. It's Wednesday, April 29th at 10am in New York. Last week, Mike Zezas and I talked through the midterm elections and their potential consequences for the economy and markets. This week we figured it might be helpful to talk about the setup into November, especially as we're both increasingly being asked about the macro outlook and potential for targeted stimulus to offset the oil shock. So, Seth, let's start there. we know cost of living is a key issue in elections, and we've seen a pretty meaningful oil shock feed through markets. How are you thinking about that in the context of the broader economy? Seth Carpenter: Our U.S. economics team has estimated that the higher gas prices that we have now and likely to have for the rest of the year are going to be more than enough to offset any boost to consumer spending from the higher tax refunds this year. So, I think that's the first point. If you're expecting a boost to come through that channel, you probably want to unwind that. And In fact, overall, what we've done is lowered our forecast for U.S. growth by about three or four tenths of percentage point worth of growth this year because of the higher energy prices. So, it's a drag on spending, I think, no matter how you cut it. Ariana Salvatore: And that's not happening in isolation, right? Seth Carpenter: No, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. We've also got at least somewhat restrictive monetary policy layered on top. So, financial conditions are already a little bit tight and the oil price shock sort of amplifies that tightening by weighing on spending. That's going to be really important. I think an extra complication then is what does it do to inflation? For now, we don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. History says at least looking at the data that when energy prices go up, when oil prices go up, gasoline prices go up. It does boost headline inflation for sure, but the pass through to core inflation is pretty limited, and the effects tend to go away on their own without too much time. So, I think the real hit here is going to be from the higher costs acting like a drag on consumer spending. Ariana Salvatore: Right. And importantly, it's a very visible shock. Gasoline prices feed directly into how consumers and voters perceive the economy, which brings us into the political overlay as we approach the midterms… Seth Carpenter: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And whenever we economists are thinking about inflation and prices and consumers, we think about exactly that – what we call salience, just how visible are these prices. And gasoline prices tend to be some of those prices that stick out in people's minds. So, if people are seeing it. And people are reacting to it, give me some idea of what the Congress can realistically do between now and the midterm elections. Ariana Salvatore: Well, I would say in theory there's a range of options. Direct stimulus, targeted transfers. We tend to frame affordability policies across five vectors: energy, healthcare, housing, consumer credit and trade policy. But in practice, the constraints are pretty binding right now and as we've been saying, tariff policy is really the only lever the president can pull easily to have a real impact on voters. Seth Carpenter: All right. So, you said constraints and constraints for the Congress. Can you walk us through what those constraints are? Ariana Salvatore: Sure. So, the first and most obvious is deficits. We're already running large fiscal deficits in the U.S., and I would say there's limited political appetite to expand them meaningfully from here in the near term, especially heading into an election. The second is procedure. If you want to pass something sizable, you're either looking at reconciliation, which requires political alignment in a number of procedural hurdles. Or bipartisan cooperation to get around the filibuster. Both seem difficult to us in this environment. Seth Carpenter: So my experience in Washington for a couple decades of working on policy is that when things are difficult, they tend to take more time. So how does the timing component of all of this matter, and how does it fit into the way that you're thinking about it? Ariana Salvatore: Timing is the third constraint. The legislative calendar in particular. What we see is as you get closer to midterms – really any election – the window for passing major legislation narrows pretty quickly. That's because lawmakers shift their focus toward campaigning, and the agenda itself just becomes more limited. And then to finish off the constraints, the fourth I would say is implementation. Even if something were to pass, there's a lag between legislation and the actual economic impact. Getting funds out the door, whether it's checks or programmatic spending, tends to take time. Seth Carpenter: Yeah, even well targeted policy might not hit the economy in time to have the desired effect before the election. Would you agree with that? Ariana Salvatore: Yeah, but for argument's sake, let's say we're wrong on that and Congress does manage to pass something. Maybe not a broad-based stimulus package, but let's say some form of targeted relief. From a macro perspective, what do you think would matter most? Is it the size of the package, how quickly it gets implemented, or which consumers are targeted? Seth Carpenter: Yeah, I'm going to have to say a little bit of all of the above. I mean, economic analysis really tends to show that tax cuts tend to simulate less than increased spending and transfers matter. But it matters to whom those transfers happen. So, I do think if we're aiming at the lower end of the income distribution, probably has a higher propensity to spend; and so, you're more likely to see more of those dollars getting spent and faster – if that's where it's going. The size of the package has to matter as well, because more money out probably means more money getting spent. But I will add, there are two caveats this time around that we probably need to take into consideration. First, with the increase in tax refunds that we've seen this year, survey suggests that households are using that money to pay down outstanding debt more than they would historically. And so, we might be in a situation because of the past couple of years of affordability issues where households are going to try to get ahead of things and pay down some of that debt. And as a result, maybe there's a more muted effect on spending. And second, we are living in a world right now where inflation is well above the Fed's target. So, if the extra stimulus leads to extra spending at a time when prices are already high, well, there's a chance we might give an extra boost to inflation and then the Fed would have to reconsider what it's doing on monetary policy. But you said Congress is probably constrained. So, let's shift then and ask, is there something that the president could do unilaterally with executive authority? And in particular, sometimes I get this question from clients, even if there's not clear, well-defined legal authority. We've seen something like that before with the tariff policy under the IEEPA authority. It was imposed and then later it was pulled back when it was judged by courts not to be the right authority. So, why wouldn't we think – the argument goes; why wouldn't we think that some sort of large scale maybe rebates or direct payments, could get deployed quickly, even if the, let's say, legal authority is a little bit murky? Ariana Salvatore: Yes, it's an interesting question, but I think there are a few important distinctions that make something like the administration sending out checks, for example, very different from tariff policy. First, fiscal transfers are much more clearly tied to congressional authority, legally speaking. Spending power, as you know, resides in Congress, and that's a pretty firm constitutional boundary. And importantly, even something like tax refunds, which can look like direct payments aren't discretionary. They're preauthorized in the tax code, and Treasury is just returning overpayments under a standing appropriation. So, there isn't really a comparable mechanism the administration could use to send out broad-based checks, for example, without new legislation. Now, trade authorities by contrast, have historically allowed for more executive flexibility, even if contested, like we saw with the IEEPA tariffs. Direct fiscal outlays are different. You generally need explicit appropriation. And then second, there's the operational side to all of this. Even if you were to set aside the legal questions, there isn't a standing mechanism for distributing very large sums of money quickly without legislative backing. Seth Carpenter: Fair enough. And if we stay in this totally hypothetical world, what would you imagine would be the timing of any legal challenges if they did happen? Ariana Salvatore: In a scenario like this, you'd likely see challenges fairly quickly and courts could intervene early in the process, potentially before funds are even fully dispersed. So, Seth, the idea that you could deploy something on a massive scale and only deal with the legal consequences much later is all the more uncertain. But Seth, let's stay with the upside risk scenario for a moment. If Congress did pass something targeted instead, where would you expect policymakers to focus? Can we talk through maybe energy rebates, child tax credits, SNAP or nutrition support… Or do you think something else aimed at the most rate sensitive or cost of living sensitive households might make more sense? Seth Carpenter: Yeah, I think you've laid out there a pretty rational strategy for trying to make things targeted for the people who are going to be feeling this affordability crunch the most. And so, the SNAP benefits, like you said, are nutrition support. That's lower income households, families with children, people who really are living paycheck to paycheck and noticing these higher prices. Energy subsidies or some sort of tax rebate – again, trying to target where the pain is most acute; the higher electricity prices, the higher gasoline prices that people are noticing, that people are feeling. I think all of that seems very plausible. I just want to flag though, that there is this possible hidden effect, which is the more these policies mask the higher cost, the economic pain from the higher energy prices – the more it allows people to keep spending despite the higher prices. And that spending with higher prices, well, that could easily lead to a tick up in inflation. That could lead to a change in the Fed's reaction function. And if it was strong enough, if growth picked up enough and inflation picked up from here, you could easily see the Fed hiking rates instead of cutting. Ariana Salvatore: So, in other words, even if the policy surprise is maybe good news for consumers in the near term, markets would still need to think through whether it extends the inflation problem or changes the expected rate path. Seth Carpenter: I think that is exactly right. I think this is very much a case where good news could be good news, but there are going to be lots of details. So maybe if we take a step back, we've got a constrained Congress, maybe limited scope for unilateral action and a macro backdrop because of inflation that's probably already under some pressure. Ariana Salvatore: Which means the key drivers heading into the midterms later this year are likely to remain the ones that are already in place: energy prices, monetary policy, and underlying growth dynamics rather than potential new fiscal stimulus. Seth Carpenter: And so that means for markets, focus needs to stay on the fundamentals. Ariana Salvatore: Exactly. Elections can shape the policy path at the margin, but the macro cycle is doing most of the heavy lifting here. And we think that's the case following the midterms as well. If you'd like more detail there, please go ahead and listen to our podcast from last week on this topic. Seth, thanks for taking the time to talk. Seth Carpenter: Ariana, thank you for inviting me. And for the listeners, thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please share it with a friend or colleague today. And leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts.