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Morgan Stanley Investment Management
1585 Broadway,
New York, NY 10036
Joel Cramer, CFA
Managing Director, Head of North American Insurance Solutions
joel.cramer@morganstanley.com
Office: 312 706 4216
Mobile: 630 222 6765
About Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Insurance Solutions team proudly supports our insurance clients with bespoke investment solutions and a comprehensive range of strategies that align well with insurers’ investment objectives and risk tolerances. We provide risk-based capital efficient solutions across public and private market strategies, and add value through thought leadership across insurance research, portfolio management, strategic asset allocation, reporting, risk management, and rating agency/regulatory considerations.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 03/03/25
The BEAT - February 2025
Use The BEAT as your timely resource for this month’s markets. Each edition gives you ideas and insights that show you how to navigate the current investment environment.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 03/03/25
Big Picture - Key Themes for 2025
As we step into 2025, a confluence of geopolitical, economic and generational shifts will impact markets. The anti-establishment sweep of 2024 brought anti-elitist and anti-immigration leaders to power, sparking a wave of protectionist policies - from tariffs to subsidies and sanctions. While many believe the new U.S. administration's tariff strategy will drive higher inflation, stronger rates and a surging U.S. dollar, history shows that market relationships are rarely so linear.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/16/25
Stimulus Fatigue: China Can’t Band-Aid Its Way to Recovery
Since September 2024, Chinese policymakers have focused on delivering a series of stimulus packages to inject new life into their struggling economy and boost share prices. This paper delves into how Beijing is addressing the challenges it faces. Without bold reforms, China’s economic future hangs in the balance.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/16/25
The BEAT - January 2025
Use The BEAT as your timely resource for this month’s markets. Each edition gives you ideas and insights that show you how to navigate the current investment environment.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/16/25
2025 Global Fixed Income Outlook
Throughout this outlook, we aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of anticipated trends in fixed income markets, highlighting key areas of opportunity and caution for investors. We will discuss our views on economic conditions, bond yields, credit markets, currencies, and the major risks we believe may arise in the year ahead.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/16/25
2025 Private Credit Outlook
Private credit expanded to approximately $1.5 trillion at the start of 2024, up from $1 trillion in 2020, and is estimated to soar to $2.6 trillion by 2029.[1] Amid tighter bank lending, borrowers continued to value the speed, certainty and flexibility of private credit solutions. Sponsored middle market loan activity remained relatively resilient during the past year, partly supported by demand for incremental or add-on financings.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/15/25
The BEAT - Outlook for 2025
The investment environment to start the new year is quite interesting. Equity and fixed income markets appear to be fully valued and the Republican sweep in the U.S. could have global ramifications. China continues to struggle to find its footing, while AI might provide significant investment opportunities in alternative investing. The Portfolio Solutions Group looks at five key areas going into 2025.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/15/25
2025 Private Equity Outlook
We believe value creation through operational enhancements will be crucial to drive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) growth and profitability.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/15/25
The Ghost of Climate 1.0
Some very smart investors are focused on finding, funding, and scaling companies that can really move the needle on climate impact. And the good news is that there is an outbreak of innovation in climate solutions—turning fish scales into plastic alternatives, capturing carbon from the air, submerging servers in liquid to cool them, or gene editing bananas to prevent them from browning easily. These are just a few examples of the plethora of solutions capturing our collective imagination and there is something very compelling about their potential to address major climate problems.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/14/25
2025 Real Estate Outlook
As the global macro-economic environment continues to improve, the case for real estate investing has become more compelling. After a period of moderation and stabilization in 2024, we believe that 2025 will see a transition into the next upcycle. Inflation is trending down, interest rates are falling, and valuations are troughing. Equity markets, including public real estate investment trusts (REITs), are up materially over the last two years, yet private real estate valuations have been recovering slowly. Occupier demand remains uneven within and across all real estate sectors impacted by the economic cycle and longer-term structural trends.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/14/25
Driving Change: Autonomous Vehicles Revisited
People have dreamed of autonomous driving for a long time, but the technology was never up to the task. The capabilities are now improving rapidly and the potential impact is massive, we believe we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 01/14/25
Saudi's Inner Focus
Eight years ago, Saudi Arabia initiated an ambitious plan to transform its economy and reshape its global identity by 2030. Moving beyond its traditional role as the world’s top oil exporter, the Kingdom is positioning itself as a tourist destination as well as an emerging hub for international business and entertainment. Through its Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia earlier made strategic international investments in iconic French hotels, Hollywood studios and cutting-edge technology funds. But now, the country’s focus is to increase outlays at home.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 11/03/24
Aaron Sack, Head of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, on ION Influencers Fireside Chat Series
Morgan Stanley Capital Partners head Aaron Sack joins ION Analytics’ Giovanni Amodeo to talk about creating value in private equity investing, the future of middle market private equity and how it has changed over the last decade.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 11/01/24
Measuring the Moat: Assessing the Magnitude and Sustainability of Value Creation
It is critical for investors to assess corporate strategy, which explains how a firm builds a moat around its business that can lead to sustainable value creation.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 11/01/24
The Tide Turns for Emerging Markets Debt
The initiation of rate cutting by the U.S. Federal Reserve (the Fed) in September helped lift the performance of EM debt across the local currency sovereign, hard currency sovereign and corporate EM debt segments in Q3 2024. While the overall performance was strong for each bond sector index, we continued to see meaningful variation at the individual country and corporate credit level across the broad-based and diverse EM debt asset class.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 11/01/24
Breaking from the herd: What the differing pace of central bank easing could mean for fixed income
If a social anthropologist were to study central bankers, she would probably conclude they are social beings who like to adhere to the norms and fashions set by the central banking community. They read the same research papers, attend each other’s conferences and do secondments to each other’s offices. Many have also attended the same universities. Not surprisingly, they often think similarly and implement similar policies along similar timelines.
PODCASTMorgan Stanley Investment Management | 09/03/24
Inside Private Equity: Insights from Aaron Sack of Morgan Stanley
Aaron Sack is the Head of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners.
PODCASTMorgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/22/24
The Future of Private Credit with Ashwin Krishnan & Jeff Levin of Morgan Stanley
Ashwin Krishnan is the Managing Director, Co-Head of North American Private Credit, and Head of Opportunistic Credit at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and Jeff Levin is the Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, and Head of Direct Lending at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Pattern Recognition: Opportunities and Limits
We explore the powers and perils of pattern recognition, which investors often cite as a basis for action.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Valuation Multiples: What They Miss, Why They Differ, and the Link to Fundamentals
Most investors “price” the stocks of companies by using valuation multiples instead of “valuing” them based on future cash flows and fundamentals.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Stock Market Concentration: How Much Is Too Much?
Stock market concentration has increased sharply over the past decade, creating a challenging environment for active managers and also raising unease about the loss of diversification, the valuations of the largest stocks, and the effect of flows into index funds.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Emerging Markets: Stepping Into the Spotlight
In the 2010s, emerging market (EM) equities suffered their worst performance as an asset class since the 1930s. They returned a mere +49%, compared to an average of +203% in the previous seven decades. Emerging market countries ran high twin deficits, which led to currency depreciation and forced a cleanup of excesses from their over-leveraged balance sheets, a legacy of loose fiscal and monetary policies. The growth differential between emerging economies and the developed world, historically a key driver of relative equity returns, had also deteriorated in the last decade, a factor which is now turning in favor of EM. After lagging the developed markets (DM), especially U.S. equities which have been dominated by the performance of a handful of stocks, emerging markets are in a much stronger position to outperform developed countries this decade.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
China Inc.: A Changing Mindset
In recent years, investor sentiment toward China has undergone a remarkable transformation, from maximum exposure to a significant scaling back of investments. This change unfolded against a backdrop of slower domestic growth and a complex geopolitical landscape. Yet, we believe current initiatives to improve shareholder returns suggest a new mindset may be on the horizon.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Private Credit Perspectives: Q&A with Jeff Levin and Mark Jochims of Morgan Stanley Private Credit (MSPC)
Appetite for opportunities in private debt investing has been on the rise. In this dialogue, members of Morgan Stanley Investment Management's Private Credit leadership team, Jeff Levin (JL) and Mark Jochims (MJ), offer their perspective on the market. Jeff Levin is the Co-Head of Morgan Stanley's North America Private Credit team, where he serves on the Investment Committee and is the Portfolio Manager and the Head of Direct Lending. Mark Jochims serves as Head of European Private Credit and is a member of the Private Credit & Equity Executive Committee of Morgan Stanley.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
The Founder Advantage: Finding Alpha in Middle-Market Private Equity
Mid-sized private equity investments have generated outsized relative revenue and EBITDA growth.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Lauren Hochfelder on Investment Wars: Do Recent Disruptions in the Real Estate Sector Create Opportunity in 2024?
Lauren Hochfelder, Co-CEO of Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, joins host Joseph Halpern, Chief Investment Officer at Fountainhead, to discuss material disruptions to the global real estate market in the last few years as well as future trends and potential tailwinds for commercial real estate including shifts in the global supply chain and e-commerce.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Re-writing the Playbook on Alignment
Amid today’s environment and ongoing growth in GP-led deals, rolling carry and putting additional capital at risk are no longer enough to guarantee alignment, says Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s Nash Waterman.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
Supply Chain Overhaul: How Shifting Demand within U.S. Markets and Product Types is Shaping a New Era for Industrial Investment
A slowing macroeconomy and elevated interest rate environment underscore the importance of investing in sectors and markets supported by structural forces that can provide growth. Industrial real estate, the major beneficiary of the e-commerce megatrend of the last decade, is positioned to again benefit from the next megatrend: the overhaul of global supply chains. While investors have had their pick of any product (bulk warehouses to support large-scale distribution, or small last-mile facilities to support same day delivery) and generate strong returns, the locations, product types and asset specifications required to support supply chain shifts are much more nuanced.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
We’ll take your word for it
Developed market yields were slightly lower over the month, as the market seemingly took the Fed’s word that it is still on track for three rate cuts this year and that the terminal rate would remain around the 3.25% level.
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Morgan Stanley Investment Management | 08/12/24
All Not So Quiet on the Western Front
April was another challenging month for fixed income returns, following higher than expected growth and inflation data from the United States. These higher prints caused markets to push back expectations for rate cuts in the U.S. and reduce the magnitude of cuts between now and the end of 2025.