Coming Soon: The Tariff Hit on Economic Data

Paul Walsh: Welcome to Thoughts on the Markets. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's Head of European Product. And today we're discussing the weakness we've seen year-to-date in the U.S. dollar and what this means for the European stock market.

It's Tuesday, July the 15th at 3:00 PM in London.

I'm delighted to be joined by my colleagues, Marina Zavolock, Morgan Stanley's Chief European Equity Strategist, and James Lord, Morgan Stanley's Chief Global FX Strategist.

James, I'm going to start with you because I think we've got a really differentiated view here on the U.S. dollar. And I think when we started the year, the bearish view that we had as a house on the U.S. dollar, I don't think many would've agreed with, frankly. And yet here we are today, and we've seen the U.S. dollar weakness proliferating so far this year –   but actually it's more than that.

When I listen to your view and the team's view, it sounds like we've got a much more structurally bearish outlook on the U.S. dollar from here, which has got some tenure. So, I don't want to steal your thunder, but why don't you tell us, kind of frame the debate, for us around the U.S. dollar and what you're thinking.

James Lord: So, at the beginning of the year, you're right. The consensus was that, you know, the election of Donald Trump was going to deliver another period of what people have called U.S. exceptionalism.

Paul Walsh:  Yeah.

James Lord:  And with that it would've been outperformance of U.S. equities, outperformance of U.S. growth, continued capital inflows into the United States and outperformance of the U.S. dollar.

At the time we had a slightly different view. I mean, with the help of the economics team, we took the other side of that debate largely on the assumption that actually U.S. growth was quite likely to slow through 2025, and probably into 2026 as well – on the back of restrictions on immigration, lack of fiscal stimulus. And, increasingly as trade tariffs were going to be implemented…

Paul Walsh: Yeah. Tariffs, of course…

James Lord: That was going to be something that weighed on growth.

So that was how we set out the beginning of the year. And as the year has progressed, the story has evolved. Like some of the other things that have happened, around just the extent to which tariff uncertainty has escalated. The section 899 debate.

Paul Walsh: Yeah.

James Lord: Some of the softness in the data and just the huge amounts of uncertainty that surrounds U.S. policymaking in general has accelerated the decline in the U.S. dollar. So, we do think that this has got further to go. I mean, the targets that we set at the beginning of the year, we kind of already met them. But when we published our midyear outlook, we extended the target.

So, we may even have to go towards the bull case target of euro-dollar of 130.

Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.

James Lord: But as the U.S. data slows and the Fed debate really kicks off. Where at Morgan Stanley U.S. Economics research is expecting the Fed to ultimately cut to 2.5 percent

Paul Walsh: Yeah.

Lord: That’s really going to really weigh on the dollar as well. And this comes on the back of a 15-year bull market for the dollar.

Paul Walsh: That's right.

James Lord:  From 2010 all the way through to the end of last year, the dollar has been on a tear.

Paul Walsh: On a structural bull run.

James Lord: Absolutely. And was at the upper end of that long-term historical range. And the U.S. has got 4 percent GDP current account deficit in a slowing growth environment. It's going to be tough for the dollar to keep going up. And so, we think we're sort of not in the early stages, maybe sort of halfway through this dollar decline. But it's a huge change compared to what we've been used to. So, it's going to have big implications for macro, for companies, for all sorts of people.

Paul Walsh: Yeah. And I think that last point you make is absolutely critical in terms of the implications for corporates in particular, Marina, because that's what we spend every hour of every working day thinking about. And yes, currency's been on the radar, I get that. But I think this structural dynamic that James alludes to perhaps is not really conventional wisdom still, when I think about the sector analysts and how clients are thinking about the outlook for the U.S. dollar.

But the good news is that you've obviously done detailed work in collaboration with the floor to understand the complexities of how this bearish dollar view is percolating across the different stocks and sectors. So, I wondered if you could walk us through what your observations are and what your conclusions are having done the work.

Marina Zavolock: First of all, I just want to acknowledge that what you just said there. My background is emerging markets and coming into covering Europe about a year and a half ago. I've been surprised, especially amid the really big, you know, shift that we're seeing that James was highlighting – how FX has been kind of this secondary consideration. , this kind of, Everybody  In the process of doing this work, I realized that analysts all look at FX in different way. Investors all look at FX in different way. And in …

Paul Walsh: So do corporates.

Marina Zavolock: Yeah, corporates all look at FX in different way. We've looked a lot at that. Having that EM background where we used to think about FX as much as we thought about equities, it was as fundamental to the story...

Paul Walsh: And to be clear, that's because of the volatility…

Marina Zavolock: Exactly, which we're now seeing now coming into, you know, global markets effectively with the dollar moves that we've had. What we've done is created or attempted to create a framework for assessing FX exposure by stock, the level of FX mismatches, the types of FX mismatches and the various types of hedging policies that you have for those – particularly you have hedging for transactional FX mismatches.

Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.

Marina Zavolock:  And we've looked at this from stock level, sector level, aggregating the stock level data and country level. And basically, overall, some of the key conclusions are that the list of stocks, that benefit from Euro strength that we've identified, which is actually a small pocket of the European index. That group of stocks that actually benefits from euro strength has been strongly outperforming the European index, especially year-to-date.

Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.

Marina Zavolock:  And just every day it's kind of keeps breaking on a relative basis to new highs. Given the backdrop of James' view there, we expect that to continue. On the other hand, you have even more exposure within the European index of companies that are being hit basically with earnings, downgrades in local currency terms. That into this earning season in particular, we expect that to continue to be a risk for local currency earnings.

Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.

Marina Zavolock: The stocks that are most negatively impacted, they tend to have a lot of dollar exposure or EM exposure where you, pockets of currency weakness as well.

So overall what we found through our analysis is that more than half of the European index is negatively exposed to this euro and other local currency strength. The sectors that are positively exposed is a minority of the index. So about 30 percent is either materially or positively exposed to the euro and other local currency strength. And sectors within that in particular that stand out positively exposed utilities, real estate banks. And the companies in this bucket, which we spend a lot of time identifying, they are strongly outperforming the index.

They're breaking to new highs almost on a daily basis relative to the index. And I think that's going to continue into earning season because that's going to be one of the standouts positively, amid probably a lot of downgrades for companies who have translational exposure to the U.S. or EM.

Paul Walsh: And so, let's take that one step further, Marina, because obviously hedging is an important part of the process for companies. And as we've heard from James, of a 15-year bull run for dollar strength. And so most companies would've been hedging, you know, dollar strength to be fair where they've got mismatches. But what are your observations having looked at the hedging side of the equation?

Marina Zavolock: Yeah, so let me start with FX mismatches. So, so we find that about half of the European index is exposed to some level of FX mismatches.

Paul Walsh: Mm-hmm.

Marina Zavolock: So, you have intra-European currency mismatches. You have companies sourcing goods in Asia or China and shipping them to Europe. So, it's actually a favorable FX mismatch, And then as far as hedging, the type of hedging that tends to happen for companies is related to transactional mismatches. So, these are cost revenue, balance sheet mismatches; cashflow distribution type mismatches. So, they're more the types of mismatches that could create risk rather than translational mismatches, which are – they're just going to happen.

Paul Walsh: Yeah.

Marina Zavolock: Um,  And one of the most interesting aspects of our report is that we found that companies that have advanced hedging, FX hedging programs, they first of all, they tend to outperform, when you compare them to companies with limited or no hedging, despite having transactional mismatches. And secondly, they tend to have lower share price volatility as well, particularly versus the companies with no hedging, which have the most share price volatility.

So, the analysis, generally, in Europe of this most, the most probably diversified region globally, is that FX hedging actually does generate alpha and contributes to relative performance.

Paul Walsh: Let's connect the two a little bit here now, James, because obviously as companies start to recalibrate for a world where dollar weakness might proliferate for longer, those hedging strategies are going to have to change.

So just any kind of insights you can give us from that perspective. And maybe implications across currency markets as a result of how those behavioral changes might play out, I think would be very interesting for our listeners.

James Lord:  Yeah, I think one thing that companies can do is change some of the tactics around how they implement the hedges. So, this can revolve around both the timing and also the full extent of the hedge ratios that they have. Imean, some companies who are –  in our conversations with them when they're talking about their hedging policy, they may have a range. Maybe they don't hedge a 100 percent of the risk that they're trying to hedge. They might have to do something between 80 and a hundred percent. So, you can, you can adjust your hedge ratios…

Paul Walsh: Adjust the balances a bit.

James Lord: Yeah. And you can delay the timing of them as well.

The other side of it is just deciding like exactly what kind of instrument to use to hedge as well. I mean, you can hedge just using pure spot markets. You can use forward markets and currencies. You can implement different types of options, strategies.

And I think this was some of the information that we were trying to glean from the survey was this question that Marina was asking about. Do you have a limited or advanced hedging program? Typically, we would find that corporates that have advanced programs might be using more options-based strategies, for example. And you know, one of the pieces of analysis in the report that my colleague Dave Adams did was really looking at the effectiveness of different strategies depending on the market environment that we're in.

So, are we in a sort of risk-averse market environment, high vol environment? Different types of strategies work for different types of market environments. So, I would encourage all corporates that are thinking about implementing some kind of hedging strategy to have a look at that document because it provides a lot of information about the different ways you can implement your hedges. And some are much more cost effective than others.

Paul Walsh: Marina, last thought from you?

Marina Zavolock: I just want to say overall for Europe there is this kind of story about Europe has no growth, which we've heard for many years, and it's sort of true. It is true in local currency terms. So European earnings growth now on consensus estimates for this year is approaching one percent; it’s close to 1 percent. On the back of the moves we've already seen in FX, we're probably going to go negative by the time this earning season is over in local currency terms. But based on our analysis, that is primarily impacted by translation.

So, it is just because Europe has a lot of exposure to the U.S., it has some EM exposure. So, I would just really emphasize here that for investors; so, investors, many of which don't hedge FX, when you're comparing Europe growth to the U.S., it's probably better to look in dollar terms or at least in constant currency terms. And in dollar terms, European earnings growth at this point are 7.6 percent in dollar terms. That's giving Europe the benefit for the euro exposure that it has in other local currencies. So, I think these things, as FX starts to be front of mind for investors more and more, these things will become more common focus points.

But right now, a lot of investors just compare local currency earnings growth.

Paul Walsh: So, this is not a straightforward topic, and we obviously think this is a very important theme moving through the balance of this year. But clearly, you're going to see some immediate impact moving through the next quarter of earnings. Marina and James, thanks as always for helping us make some sense of it all.

James Lord: Thanks, Paul.

Marina Zavolock: Thank you.

Paul Walsh: And to our listeners out there, thank you as always for tuning in.

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.

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 stocks remain so resilient.

It's Monday, July 14th at 11:30am in New York.

So, let’s get after it.

Why has the equity market been resilient in the face of new tariff  announcements? Well first, the import cost exposure for S&P 500 industries is more limited given the deferrals and exemptions still in place like the USMCA compliant imports from Mexico. Second, the higher tariff rates recently announced on several trading partners are generally not perceived to be the final rates as negotiations progress. I continue to believe these tariffs will ultimately end up looking like a 10 percent consumption tax on imports that generate significant revenue for the Treasury. And finally, many companies pre-stocked inventory before the tariffs were levied and so the higher priced goods have not yet flowed through the cost of goods sold.

Furthermore, with the market’s tariffs concerns having peaked in early April, the market  is looking forward and focused on the data it can measure. On that score, the dramatic v-shaped rebound in earnings revisions breadth for the S&P 500 has been a fundamental tailwind that justifies the equity rally since April in the face of continued trade and macro uncertainty. This gauge is one of our favorites for predicting equity prices and it troughed at -25 percent in mid-April. It’s now at +3 percent. The sectors with the most positive earnings revisions breadth relative to the S&P 500 are Financials, Industrials and Software — three sectors we continue to  recommend due to this dynamic.

The other more recent development helping to support equities is the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill. While this Bill does not provide incremental fiscal spending to support the economy or lower the statutory tax rate, it does lower  the cash earnings tax rates for companies that spend heavily on both R&D and Capital Goods.

Our Global Tax Team believes we could see cash tax rates fall from 20 percent today back toward the 13 percent level that existed before some of these benefits from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that expired in 2022. This benefit is also likely to jump start what has been an anemic capital spending cycle for corporate America, which could drive both higher GDP and revenue growth for the companies that provide the type of equipment that falls under this category of spending.

Meanwhile, the Foreign-Derived Intangible Income is a tax incentive that benefits  U.S. companies earning income from foreign markets. It was designed to encourage companies to keep their intellectual property in the U.S. rather than moving it to countries with lower tax rates. This deduction was scheduled to decrease in 2026, which would have raised the effective tax rate by approximately 3 percent. That risk has been eliminated in the Big Beautiful Bill.

Finally, the Digital Service Tax imposed on online companies that operate  overseas may be reduced. Late last month, Canada announced that it would rescind its Digital Service Tax on the U.S. in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement with the U.S. This would be a major windfall for online companies and some see the potential for more countries, particularly  in Europe, to follow Canada’s lead as trade negotiations with the U.S. continue.

Bottom line, while uncertainty around tariffs remains high, there are many other positive drivers for earnings growth over the next year that could more than  offset any headwinds from these policies. This suggests the recent rally in stocks is justified and that investors may not be as complacent as some are fearing.

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!