Making Sense of Mixed Market Signals

Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Michelle Weaver, Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Thematic and Equity Strategist. Today, we’re bringing you an update on the U.S. consumer as we try and understand the outlook for the economy.

It’s Thursday, April 9, at 10 AM in New York.

You’ve probably noticed shopping these days feels like a mixed bag. You spend money on your everyday staples like groceries, personal care or clothes. But you might be second-guessing those big ticket items like a new piece of furniture or a new TV. And you're not alone. Our newest AlphaWise survey of U.S. consumers reveals a pretty mixed signal. On the surface, things look solid. Consumers are still spending. We’ve seen that borne out in some of the recent economic data. And our survey work reveals around 34 percent expect to spend more next month, compared to just 15 percent who expect to spend less. That leaves us with a net spending outlook of +18 percent, which is actually above the long-term average.

But when we start to dig in and look beneath the surface, the story shifts. Confidence is deteriorating. Nearly half of consumers expect the economy to get worse over the next six months, while only 32 percent expect an improvement. This results in a net outlook of -17 percent, a meaningful drop from what we saw last month.

So how do we reconcile that? That spending with that deterioration in confidence. It’s really a balance of timelines. Consumers are spending today, but they’re increasingly worried about tomorrow. And these worries are grounded in very real concerns. Inflation remains the dominant issue, with 57 percent of consumers citing rising prices as a key concern – reversing what had been a fairly short-lived improvement on consumers' view on prices.

At the same time, of course, with the tensions in the Middle East, geopolitical concerns are increasing quickly. They’ve jumped to 33 percent from 22 percent just last month. And concerns around the U.S. political environment remain elevated at 43 percent. When you combine all these pressures, it’s not surprising that consumers are becoming more cautious in how they plan to spend.

We’re also seeing that caution show up in the mix of expenditures. In the near term, consumers are still increasing spending across most categories – especially the essentials like groceries, gasoline, and household items. But when we look over a longer horizon, the outlook becomes more selective. Discretionary categories are weakening. Apparel spending expectations have dropped to -16 percent, domestic travel to -11 percent, and international travel to -14 percent. That shift – from discretionary to essentials – is something we tend to see when consumers are bracing for a more uncertain environment.

Now, one factor that’s supporting the near-term – a brighter spot here – is tax season. This year, 46 percent of consumers expect to receive a larger tax refund compared to last year. And what’s interesting about that is where people are going to put the money. About half of consumers plan to save at least a portion of the refund. About a third plan to pay down debt. And only around 30 percent intend to spend it on everyday purchases. So even when people receive a cash boost, the instinct isn’t to spend freely. It’s to shore up finances.     

Putting it all together, the picture of the U.S. consumer today is one of resilience but also rising caution. Spending is holding up in the near term, supported by income and tax refunds. But confidence is weakening, savings behavior is increasing, and discretionary demand is softening. These divergent trends are important. We’ll continue to watch them closely and bring you updates.

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.

Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Deputy Global Head of Research for Morgan Stanley.

Ariana Salvatore: And I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of Public Policy Research.

Michael Zezas: Today we're discussing the U.S.-Iran ceasefire's key uncertainties, consequences and what we're watching for next.

It's Wednesday, April 8th at 11am in New York.

Okay. Let's start with the current situation. The U.S. and Iran have agreed to a provisional ceasefire, two weeks tied to follow on talks and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Markets so far, treating this as a deescalation but not a clear resolution…

Ariana Salvatore: That's right. And I think the key framing here is this is a pause, not a peace deal. And in the near term, I would not assume things are suddenly stable. We still have some key uncertainties around how the ceasefire deal is going to be implemented, as well as how negotiations will begin to take shape.

Michael Zezas: Right. And that's important. It seems like Iran's reported 10-point plan for the ceasefire includes some elements that might be non-starters for the U.S., some things around sanctions and unfreezing of assets. And so, there's lots of ways that there could be some re-escalation in the near term.

Ariana Salvatore: Okay. So that's the near term – fragile, noisy, and still pretty headline driven. But let's try to think about this a little bit further out. How are we thinking about the medium term?

Michael Zezas: Yeah. So, thinking a little bit further out, it seems to us that ceasefire and Strait of Hormuz reopening should continue to progress because the incentives are widely shared across the key actors involved.

So, the U.S.’s incentive to effectively be done with the conflict is pretty well understood. There's domestic political incentives and economic incentives. There's ways to potentially explain away some of the compromises the U.S. might have to make around the Strait of Hormuz, around sanctions. And maybe point to some incentives to work with partners in the region over time to diminish the importance of the Strait of Hormuz as a choke point.

Iran's incentive is pretty clear – to preserve its regime. And another actor here, which appears to be increasingly important, is China, which has reportedly been involved in expressing its preference for deescalation. And that's pretty important because China has a lot of leverage on Iran given its economic relationship with the country.

Ariana Salvatore: So, starting with these negotiations, it seems like, as you mentioned before, there's still a lot of gaps between what the U.S. side and what the Iranian side is asking for. But let's put that in the context of the ceasefire. Even if it were to hold – that doesn't necessarily translate to stability, right?

Michael Zezas: Yeah, I think that's right. So, if Iran were to start rebuilding its military assets, in particular its nuclear program, at some point in the future, we'd probably come back to a similar point where Israel and the United States might find their ability to project that power to be intolerable. And what we don't know right now is if any type of deal is possible that can mitigate those very long-term concerns.

So, even if commodities start flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at a rate that is similar to what it was before the conflict started, it seems like there will be this overhang. Of concern that that could shut down at any moment's notice, if the U.S. and Israel and other actors in the area become concerned again with Iran's power.

Ariana Salvatore: So, that overhang you're talking about actually does have some real economic impacts. One way to frame this is kind of like a lingering tax on the global system. We see that through the oil market, right? So, we think of this as a structural risk premium on oil.

Our strategist, Martijn Rats, thinks that even in a deescalation scenario, you're not getting back to that world of $65-$70 oil. This Strait of Hormuz will continue to be a critical choke point that doesn't necessarily go away overnight. And maybe over time you could see some mitigation, construction of new pipelines, alternative routes, et cetera. But in the interim, that risk premium feeds through to energy prices, shipping costs, and ultimately food and broader supply chains, which is something that Chetan Ahya has been flagging in Asia for quite some time.

Michael Zezas: I think that's right. And so, in highlighting that the Strait of Hormuz is a critical choke point for the global economy and for supply chains generally, it's a reminder of a problem that's been on display for the last 10 years.

Just that there are supply chain choke points all over the place when you start thinking about the security needs of the U.S. and other actors throughout the globe. And so, it underscores this dynamic where multinationals are going to have to rethink – and are already starting to rethink – their supply chains. And whether or not they need to build in what our investment bankers have been calling an anti-fragile supply chain strategy. So, we can't just solve for the cheapest cost of goods and cheapest transit. You have to wire up your supply chains in a way that can survive geopolitical conflicts. And while there's some extra embedded costs that comes along with that, well, they're more reliable, so it's more efficient over the long run.

Of course, it costs a lot of money to rewire your supply chains, and so that's tied into this opportunity around capital expenditures going into proving this out. And so, investors should be aware that there are plenty of sectors which will have to participate in effectively being part of rebuilding those supply chains.

Ariana Salvatore: Yeah, so the way we're framing this is, this is another data point kind of in that trend toward a multipolar world. We've seen certain geopolitical events accelerate that transition. Russia-Ukraine, for example, the pandemic; and this is just sort of another example in that same direction. And some of the sectors that we think are structural beneficiaries here: obviously defense, in particular in Europe, and industrials here in the U.S. Chris Snyder's been doing a lot of work on reshoring, how we're seeing that pick up – and we think that probably continues.

But as we're speaking about the U.S. and what this could mean, let's bring this back to the AI angle. Because I think that's where this all really connects in maybe a less obvious way. Near term, we're thinking about the financing implications here as pretty modest. Unless we get a major re-escalation or a rupture of the ceasefire, it shouldn't really change capital availability in a meaningful way. But this could affect where capacity gets built.

Michael Zezas: Yeah, that's right. And over the past year, there's been a lot of news about the U.S. engaging in the Middle East with partners to build AI capacity via data center capacity – because there's also plenty of energy in the area to fuel those data centers. But those data centers as an infrastructure asset, and an economically valuable one at that, potentially become military targets when they're built.

So, there is a consideration here after this conflict about whether or not those things can be built or be relied upon. And it is a critical part of the U.S.' strategy to build compute capacity in the aggregate with allies. And increasingly they've been looking to the Middle East as allies in an AI build out.

Ariana Salvatore: So, if that becomes more challenging and you see persistent instability, for example, in the Middle East, you're probably going to see more demand push toward domestic U.S. data centers. And something that we've been highlighting has been not only the kind of pressures on the capital side. But also, you know, the bottlenecks that are very real – like power, permitting, labor, equipment and political resistance, which we've talked about on this podcast as well. We're seeing a lot of constraints. So, it's not really feasible that the U.S. is going to be able to fully substitute that Middle East capacity.

Michael Zezas: So, I think the read through here is that the U.S. is still on track to build the compute capacity that it needs. The CapEx that's going into that – that is helping the U.S. economy grow this year – is still very much intact. It raises some potential future questions about how quickly the U.S. can build out, but it's unclear if that matters in the near term to (a) both the build out and (b) the productivity that can come from the current build out.

Ariana Salvatore: And I think a really important consequence of what you're describing has to do with the U.S. China dynamics. So, if the U.S. is, for example, seen as a less reliable security guarantor, then you may see some of the Gulf countries potentially deepen their economic alignment with China at the margin. And that's something that could be really relevant for the upcoming U.S.-China Summit next month.

Remember that was postponed from – initially it was towards the end of March. Now it seems to be around the middle of May. So, that's a really important catalyst that we're keeping an eye on for now. That's a little bit further out.

Near term, of course, we'll be watching things like military buildup in the region. Any indications on how exactly the Strait of Hormuz will be managed from here. And how these negotiations progress over the next two weeks.

As far as the equity market is concerned, it appears that the worst of this risk is behind us from a rate of change perspective. So, our strategists think you should start to see leadership emerge from the sectors that were doing well into this conflict, namely cyclicals like Financials and Industrials leading the way from here.

Michael Zezas: Well Ariana, thanks for taking the time to talk.

Ariana Salvatore: Great speaking with you, Mike.

Michael Zezas: And as a reminder, if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please take a moment to rate and review us wherever you listen. And share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.