Podcasts about co heads

In a new episode of Head to Head, Jennifer Garcia (Private Wealth Advisor and Managing Director of the Garcia Private Wealth Group at Wells Fargo) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss her unique approach to multi-generational wealth management, what it means to lead one of the few all-women teams in financial services and how she prospects for clients.“So, I have never cold called ever. To me, the goal was to connect with bankers so that they saw my value and then they would bring clients to me. And how could I nurture that relationship? So, that's really how I built my whole practice and still to this day, all the clients I have are from referral sources.”–Jennifer Garcia Have a question for our experts? Text us for a chance to have your questions answered on the next episode.To watch the video version, go to https://www.youtube.com/@FSInvestments For more research insights go to FSInvestments.com https://bit.ly/m/fsinvestments

Damien Fournier and Lionel Gomez, Co-Heads of Private Equity, discuss the benefits and risks of private equity, as well segments such as venture capital and distressed investments, with Daniel Morris, Chief Market Strategist. They highlight the agility private equity brings in the current market and economic environment and discuss the opportunities in themes such as healthcare and energy transition.For more insights, visit Viewpoint: https://viewpoint.bnpparibas-am.com/Download the Viewpoint app: https://onelink.to/tpxq34Follow us on LinkedIn: https://bnpp.lk/amHosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Today, it is my pleasure to speak with Betsy Erickson & Joseph Brooks, Co-Heads of Family and Individual Services at Arabella Advisors, a leading philanthropy services firm supporting individual, family, institutional, and corporate donors worldwide. Prior to joining Arabella, Betsy worked for eight years in the nonprofit sector with groups focused on cancer research. She provided independent consulting services to national and regional nonprofit organizations such as CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Prior to joining Arabella, Joseph led the philanthropic advising team at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and was a fundraising strategist for Marquette University and the country's largest HIV/AIDS service organization. Betsy and Joseph, and their firm Arabella, are valued Advisor members of FOX, and we are privileged to have their knowledge and expertise in our membership community. The role of philanthropy within enterprise families is evolving – in some cases, philanthropy becoming the primary activity of the family enterprise. Betsy and Joseph talk about what is happening today in the world of family philanthropy and highlight the latest trends that have been shaping the space over the recent years. These trends are inevitably affecting the role and design of the family office. Betsy and Joseph explain how family offices are transforming to respond to the importance of philanthropy and how they should be redesigned to support the family's evolving needs and activities. Arabella Advisors has put forth a body of thought leadership on the barriers to philanthropy that constrain enterprise families. Betsy and Joseph provide an overview of the most common barriers families face and how they can practically overcome them. Philanthropy is often one of the most common activities families undertake together after they have evolved beyond being fully focused on their business – and as a result, it often is the training ground for other joint activities by the family. Betsy and Joseph share their views on the role of philanthropy in helping families work together and its broader practical implications on fostering lasting collaboration and unity among family members. Don't miss this highly informative conversation with two of the leading experts and advisors in the realm of family giving and philanthropy.

Thought leadership has become an essential strategy for professional services marketers, and it's even more powerful when driven by the experts and lawyers themselves. In today's episode of CMO Series Rainmakers, Olivia Backon is joined by two of the foremost voices in advertising and marketing law - Brinsley Dresden and Geraint Lloyd-Taylor, Partners and Co-Heads of Advertising & Marketing at Lewis Silkin. Brinsley and Geraint are renowned for their engaging and insightful thought leadership. With a blend of wit and humour, they tackle key issues in the advertising world, from ASA decisions to new legislation. Through their writing and expertise, they've shaped industry conversations and built strong reputations within the legal community and with their clients by strategically leveraging thought leadership to enhance their personal and practice brands. Brinsley, Geraint and Olivia discuss: How Brinsley and Geraint have built their reputations in the advertising and marketing law space, and the moment they realised the power of thought leadership in shaping professional reputations How writing and publishing regular insights helps establish authority and credibility in a competitive industry How they developed their witty writing style, and why this approach is essential for connecting with clients How to integrate thought leadership with other marketing strategies to enhance the client experience and broaden reach Examples of how thought leadership content has delivered tangible value to clients and generated new business The AdLaw Podcast Brinsley and Geraint host, and how that is contributing to the practice group's credibility in the advertising law space Advice for others looking to build their personal, practice and firm brands through thought leadership You can catch all the insights from Brinsley, Geraint and the team at Lewis Silkin, here. 

Sponsor-backed deals are recovering steadily rather than spectacularly, but 2025 offers strong signs for cross-border activity in particular. In this episode of Strategic Alternatives, RBC Capital Markets' Co-Heads of Global Financial Sponsor Coverage – Harold Varah, Graham Tufts and Ram Amarnath – assess the trends and opportunities for the year ahead.

In a new episode of Head to Head, Caroline Gundeck (Managing Director, Head of Client and Field Engagement at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to share how she became one of the industry's leading community builders, her team's powerful approach to high-net-worth clients and what it takes to be successful in a "relationship business." "This has been and always will be a relationship business. The reason clients do business with you is because of that trusted relationship. They work with you because you can deliver everything else, but they want to work with people they like and trust." - Caroline Gundeck Have a question for our experts? Text us for a chance to have your questions answered on the next episode.For more research insights go to FSInvestments.com https://bit.ly/m/fsinvestments

What can we expect for global equities in the coming year? In this podcast, Martin Moeller and Eleanor Taylor Jolidon, Co-Heads of Swiss and Global Equity, discuss the equity market trends and their sector preferences for 2025 in view of the significant macroeconomic shifts and ongoing value-creation opportunities. Listen to their insights here.

Andrew, Tom and Carl discuss Senator John Thune of South Dakota being chosen as Senate Leader and Donald Trump's meeting with Joe Biden at the White House. They also talk about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy being named co-heads of Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency and the debate among Democrats on the role of transgender rights as a campaign issue in 2024. Next, Andrew talks to RealClear Defense contributor John Waters about Trump's choice for Secretary of Defense, Fox News host and author Pete Hegseth. And then, Charlie Stone, host of “The Unknowns” on RealClearPolitics, talks to Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security under President Obama, about potential stumbling blocks to Trump's plan for the mass deportation of illegal immigrants.

In a new episode of Head to Head, Jackie Larson (Senior Vice President of the Westside Group at RBC Wealth Management) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss how to find your client's “money language,” the way she works to empower a new generation of women in financial services and how she built an impressive career on kindness and compassion.“Everybody has a different background as to what their upbringing was around money. And I think the sooner you can learn about the language that they are accustomed to and how they speak, if you can speak on that same level, they feel heard and understood.”–Jackie LarsonHave a question for our experts? Text us for a chance to have your questions answered on the next episode.For more research insights go to FSInvestments.com https://bit.ly/m/fsinvestments

Mortgage rates aren't directly influenced by Federal Reserve policy. However, the Fed's recent cut likely will have a domino effect on the US housing market, say our Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and James Egan.----- Transcript -----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley.James Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of Securitized Products Research at Morgan Stanley. And on this episode of the podcast, we're going to discuss the impacts of a 50-basis point cut from the Fed on the US housing and mortgage markets.It's Wednesday, October 16th at 1 pm in New York.Now, Jay, the Fed cut 50 basis points at its last meeting. What are your views on the mortgage market in the aftermath of that cut?Jay Bacow: We think that is constructive for mortgages and we recommended a long mortgage basis versus rates. The healthy economy and a Fed that doesn't want to fall behind the curve should be good for risk assets in general. We think there's a likelihood of vol possibly falling and that is constructive for agency mortgages in particular.Now it's a positive narrative. But, the valuations matter, and we have to admit that the valuations are not that compelling with spreads on agency mortgages trading near the tights since the regional bank crisis. However, if you look further back, mortgages start to look attractive, particularly relative to other high quality fixed-income assets.For instance, agency mortgages are basically trading at the average spread they've traded at since the GFC. Corporate credit, on the other hand, is trading within a few basis points of the tights since the GFC. If risk assets are going to do well, and we're certainly seeing that in corporate credit and in the stock market, we think mortgages are particularly priced attractively relative to most of them.James Egan: Alright, so relative value for mortgages makes sense, but can you talk a little bit about the technicals here?Jay Bacow: The technicals are where we feel more confident. One of the reasons why mortgage spreads have been wide for the past two years – it's an environment where the Fed and the domestic banks, the two largest holders of mortgages, have been reducing their holdings.Now, we still expect the Fed to reduce their holdings of mortgages, but we think the bank demand is going to turn positive. That's due to not just clarity around the Basel III Endgame that should be coming soon, but more directly related to this conversation – as the Fed cuts rates that directly impacts the amount of yield that banks earn of the cash sitting at the Fed.Now, that is projected to continue to go down as the Fed cuts rates. What's not projected to continually go down very much is the yield on the securities that they can be buying in mortgages. So, the incentive for them to move out of cash and into securities, and those securities likely to be mortgages, is picking up as the Fed cuts rates. And it's not just the banks that are going to be more active. It's also overseas investors. As the Fed cuts rates and the Bank of Japan hikes, the FX (foreign exchange) hedging costs, which is basically a function of the interest rate differential between the two banks is likely to decrease, which means that overseas investors will be more active.A steeper curve is going to be positive for REIT demand. And then over time, as the Fed cuts rates and money market yields go down, those retail investors are likely to be incentivized to move out of money market funds into core funds with higher yields, which will be supportive of money manager demand – although that's likely a 2025 story.James Egan: All right, Jay, thank you for that. But one of the questions that you and I have received a lot since the Fed's cut is: Okay, the Fed cut 50 basis points. Why haven't mortgage rates come down by 50 basis points on the follow?Jay Bacow: Well, so, mortgage rates, obviously in the US, the vast majority of them are 30-year fixed rate mortgages. And so, if you have one, the Fed actions don't impact that. If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, it will reset – but typically those resets happen every six months. Although you're probably getting asked about the prevailing mortgage rate; and the prevailing mortgage rate – because it's the 30-year fixed rate, it's not a function of Fed funds – but it's more of a function of the yields further out the curve. Although maybe Jim, you can do a better job explaining this.James Egan: So, when it comes to interest rates and mortgages, Jay, as you mentioned, we're going to be more focused on the five- and 10-year part of the curve than we are on Fed funds.To provide a little bit of an example there, from the fourth quarter of 2023 until the Wednesday morning that the Fed cut, 30-year mortgage rates had decreased by 180 basis points. The Fed had yet to cut a single basis point. But, just taking a step back from that cut specifically, mortgage rates have come down significantly from the fourth quarter of 2023.Jay Bacow: Right, and those mortgage rates coming down significantly has improved affordability. But what's maybe a little surprising is that hasn't really led to a pickup in sales volumes. How should we think about that moving forward?James Egan: So as mortgage rates have come down, we have seen an increase in mortgage applications, but that's been driven almost entirely by refinance applications.Purchase applications, and that's going to be what's behind home sales, those have been more or less treading water for the past 12 months. This relationship makes sense, in our view. As mortgage rates have come down, housing remains unaffordable. It's just more affordable than it was in the second half of 2023.But, if you were one of the people who bought a home over the past 24 months, and, to put that into context, that was the lowest number of home sales over a 24-month period since the second quarter of 2013. But if you were one of those people, there's a good chance that you're in the money to refinance right now.Jay Bacow: And that's something that we're seeing in the data. We've talked about the truly refinance indicators on this podcast in the past, and it measures the share of mortgages that have at least 25 basis points of incentive to refinance after accounting for closing costs.Right now, only about one in six of the outstanding borrowers have incentive to refinance. Now, that's up from pretty close to zero at the end of 2023, but if you just look at borrowers that have taken out their mortgage in the past two years, almost two-thirds of them have incentive to refinance.Now, Jim, does that mean that purchase volumes are doomed to languish around these levels?James Egan: No, but the reaction might not be as strong as some people are hoping for. While affordability has improved, it remains challenged. And the lock in effect has become a very popular phrase in the US housing and mortgage markets. And that's still in play. 75 per cent of the conventional mortgage universe still has a mortgage rate below 5 per cent.Even with the prevailing rate at 6 per cent today, the effective mortgage rate on the outstanding universe is 200 basis points out of the money. That's better than 350 [basis points] out of the money like we saw last year. But that would still be the worst that it's been in 40 years.Jay Bacow: And presumably, that is why we have this continually tight inventory.James Egan: Exactly. Now, as rates come down, we are starting to see listings increase, but it's barely made a dent in the historically low nature of the existing housing supply. The existing home sales typically grow in the 12 to 24 months following affordability improvement, but not necessarily in that initial period while affordability is improving.So relative to history, we're actually not underperforming that much from a sales perspective. And we should be beginning that 12 to 24 months sweet spot in the fourth quarter of [20]24. We just started that two to three weeks ago. While we expect existing home sales to increase, we think the growth is going to be modest relative to history and we're calling for 5 per cent growth in the coming 12 months.On the home price side, a lot of this is in line with our current view. So, we think you're going to continue to see the pace of growth slow. It's already started to slow. We think we get from about 5 per cent today to 2 percent by the end.Jay Bacow: All right, so the Fed cutting rates is not likely to cause mortgage rates to drop materially. We expect a modest pickup in housing activity. We expect home price growth to slow, but still end the year positive; and it should be supportive for mortgage spreads versus treasuries.Jim, always a pleasure talking to you.James Egan: Pleasure talking to you too, Jay.Jay Bacow: Thanks for listening. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

From public service to private wealth—Joe Brienza shares his journey to becoming a Forbes and Barron's top-ranked financial advisor. In a new episode of Head to Head, Joe Brienza (Managing Director, Clarity Advisors, UBS Private Wealth Management) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss the adrenaline rush of a new client, what it means to have competition in your blood and his path from working with presidents and political consultants to helping families build wealth and plan for the future.“I wanted to come in here and do something where at least at nights I can say, “you know what, I'm making a positive impact to someone, not just enriching my W2.” And that was really much more important to me at the beginning—just to do something that was really important. That was how I ended up getting into this business.”—Joe BrienzaHave a question for our experts? Text us for a chance to have your questions answered on the next episode.For more research insights go to FSInvestments.com https://bit.ly/m/fsinvestments

Want to know how to deal with a toxic work environment? Curious about the best way to give feedback to a Gen Z staffer? Wondering if you should change jobs? This is the episode for you! Today Liz and Sarah talk to Kim Lessing and Kate Arend, the Co-Heads of Film and TV at Amy Poehler's Paper Kite Productions, about their funny, insightful podcast — Million Dollar Advice. This week's Hollywood Hack is inspired by Sarah's recent outing to see the original Footloose: Find out if your local movie theater has special releases. Finally, Sarah recommends watching Oprah Winfrey's DNC speech. Get in touch on Instagram: @Sfain & @LizCraft Get in touch on Threads: @Sfain & @LizCraft Visit our website: https://happierinhollywood.com Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/HappierinHollywood/ Happier in Hollywood is part of ‘The Onward Project,' a family of podcasts brought together by Gretchen Rubin—all about how to make your life better. Check out the other Onward Project podcasts—Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and Side Hustle School . If you liked this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and tell your friends! LINKS: Million Dollar AdvicePineapple Street Studios and Paper Kite Podcasts Amy Poehler's Paper Kite Ups Kate Arend & Kim Lessing As Brooke Posch Departsdeadline.com WATCH: Oprah Winfrey's full speech urging voters to choose joy by choosing Harris at the DNCyoutube.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a new episode of Head to Head, Ken Crowley (Private Wealth Advisor and Managing Director at Rockefeller Capital Management) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss what surfing taught him about the importance of preparation, how growing up in Central America shaped his perspective and the value that creating a diverse, multi-generational team brings to his clients.“I like to describe our team as really a true representation of America. You've got diversity at different levels, not just generationally, but culturally. And these experiences and perspectives really give us a deep understanding of our clients and their needs.” – Ken Crowley

Mike and Kelly consider themselves more than just financial advisors—they're life advisors.In a new episode of Head to Head, Managing Partners Mike Barry and Kelly Milligan join Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss their decision to go independent after 20+ years at a name brand firm, the unique, team approach they take to working with clients and their secret to building a truly scalable practice. “Three weeks later, they call us. They're bubbly, giddy. Oh, that was such great advice. You know, we found a place, we're moving in four weeks. And to this day, whenever that client comes in, they will say, the best advice you ever gave us had nothing to do with stocks and bonds because you knew what our life was, and you gave us advice that was objective and something that we couldn't see because we're in it.”—Kelly Flannigan

How does the #1 advisor in the country close business? In a new episode of Head to Head, Jeff Erdmann (Founding Partner of the Erdmann Group at Merrill Private Wealth Management) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss how childhood dyslexia helped him launch a multi-billion practice, why he hires “partners” instead of “employees” and how he balances family, mentorship, career and philanthropy.“It's about connecting with people and finding a connection point. Allowing them to talk about themselves. My rule number one is I never want to speak more than 30 percent of the time in a conversation. [I want to be finding] what matters to them, letting them talk about it and having a deep impactful conversation. And then obviously taking a complex situation and simplifying it for them and then giving them an outcome.” —Jeff Erdmann

In a new episode of Head to Head, Michelle Marquez (Managing Director at Marquez Private Wealth Management of Raymond James) joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss how she built an authentic personal brand, her inspiring work with children's charities and the unique challenge of managing wealth for professional athletes. “I think for professional athletes, it's really difficult for them. I know that the statistics are against them. You see that everywhere. It's difficult because they live in chaos. They're pulled from their families and the have to travel alone and by themselves…And unless, as an advisor, you have the time to really dedicate—and not just dedicate, you have to devote time and energy. You have to have the patience to be repetitive. Repeat the goals, repeat what it is you said just an hour ago. It helps them stay focused.”

Ray Spitzley is a Vice Chairman in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Divi- sion and Co-Heads the Firm's Energy Transition banking efforts. Based in New York, Mr. Spitzley has 40 years of experience working with leading power, utility and energy companies with corporate and asset based financings and mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. From 1993-2001 Mr. Spitzley was based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney and also worked on a number of privatizations for governments in Australia, China, Hong Kong. Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since moving back to New York in 2001, Mr. Spitzley has focused the majority of his work serving clients in North America, with a particular focus on conventional and renewable generation as well as utility M&A. More recently, with the passage of the IRA and its numerous incentives for decarbonization, he is spending his time helping developers raise capital for a range of energy transition projects including carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS), green ammonia and hydrogen, low/zero carbon methanol, gasoline. and jet fuel, and renewable natural gas. He also works with a number of companies involved in the manufacture and/or implementation of fuel cells, battery electric storage systems and other "clean tech" applications. Mr. Spitzley is a graduate of Denison University and holds a Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale University.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Sharon Cohen Levin, Craig Jones and Eric Kadel, Co-Heads of S&C's National Security Practice, Adam Szubin, Of Counsel in S&C's National Security Practice, and Andrew DeFilippis, Special Counsel in S&C's National Security Practice, continue their discussion of significant developments in national security enforcement.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Sharon Cohen Levin, Tony Lewis and Eric Kadel, Co-Heads of S&C's National Security Practice, Adam Szubin, Of Counsel in S&C's National Security Practice, and Andrew DeFilippis, Special Counsel in S&C's National Security Practice, continue their discussion of significant developments in national security enforcement.

In this episode, host David Rawlings chats with Dorothee Blessing and Conor Hillery, Co-Heads of Investment Banking for EMEA at J.P. Morgan, on the financial pulse of the EMEA region. They explore the impact of geopolitical influences, regulatory shifts, and the M&A outlook in a rapidly evolving economic and investment banking landscape.    This episode was recorded on March 11, 2024. ​​ This material was prepared by certain personnel of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates and subsidiaries worldwide and not the firm's research department. It is for informational purposes only, is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase, sale or tender of any financial instrument and does not constitute a commitment, undertaking, offer or solicitation by any JPMorgan Chase entity to extend or arrange credit or to provide any other products or services to any person or entity. ​​ © 2024 JPMorgan Chase & Company. All rights reserved.   

Eve Ellis (Vice President, the Matterhorn Group, William Blair) has received numerous awards, both for her work as a top wealth advisor and for her leadership in promoting equity and empowerment in financial services and beyond.In a new episode of Head to Head, Eve joins Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss what it means to be “passionate about fairness,” why she advises young professionals to “work where you're valued” and how she helps clients build wealth while changing the world for the better. “If you think about when you build a portfolio, everybody always asks about risk tolerance. They want the portfolio to represent who the client is in terms of risk. And we're saying we want the portfolio to represent who you are in terms of you. We want that portfolio focused on what your values are and who you are.”–Eve Ellis

After a year of stark contrasts in the public and private equity markets for healthcare, 2024 is shaping up to be another mixed outlook. While biotech continues to bolster the market, albeit more in follow-on offerings than IPOs, and HCIT and healthcare services have tailwinds, the medtech and value-based care subsectors have challenges as well as opportunities. Join our Co-Heads of Healthcare Equity Markets for their insights into the year ahead.

In this episode, join us for an insightful conversation with Jeremy David and Drew Goldstein, Co-Heads of Healthcare at Palantir, as they delve into the current landscape of healthcare. They share the reasons behind their excitement about the evolving dynamics in the industry and shed light on how Palantir is uniquely positioned to build meaningful solutions for health systems across the US. As seasoned experts, they provide valuable perspectives on the essential traits that hospital leaders must possess to navigate the challenges in the evolving industry and to seize opportunities in the next 2-3 years. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the healthcare sector's intricacies, and how a dynamic and AI-driven software platform is driving operational efficiencies on hospital floors today.This episode is sponsored by Palantir.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Marc Treviño and Melissa Sawyer, Co-Heads of S&C's Corporate Governance Practice, discuss corporate governance developments and what to expect in 2024. Marc and Melissa explore the ongoing trend of increased shareholder proposals focused on environmental, social and political topics and touch on ESG as it relates to the broader legislative and political climate. ESP-focused shareholder proposals and ESG issues are at the center of a growing web of legislation and government actions at multiple levels. They also note that companies may be looking to implement an officer exculpation provision in 2024.

Louise and Nina Gunderson are more than just an incredibly successful advisor team at UBS Private Wealth Management—they're also mother and daughter.In a new episode of Head to Head, Louise and Nina join Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson to discuss running a team like a family, blazing new trails in financial services and working together to build multi-generational relationships to help clients achieve their goals.

As RBC Capital Markets looks forward to a robust end to the year, John Hoffman and Jason Levitz, Co-Heads of Healthcare Equity Capital Markets explore how the firms who succeed in an especially dynamic market will be those willing to embrace new ways of thinking about unlocking value.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Julie Jordan, Tracy Richelle High and Annie Ostrager, Co-Heads of S&C's Labor and Employment Group, discuss the Supreme Court's decision in two consolidated cases against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The Court held that the schools' admissions programs—both of which used race as an explicit factor in admissions decisions—violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in education.   Julie, Tracy and Annie examine pending employment and contracting cases that may be affected by the Court's decision, cover related shareholder proposals and offer guidance for employers, including reviewing hiring and promotion processes and procedures to examine whether any decisions are expressly based on race, gender or other protected classes. 

In a new episode of Head to Head, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Rory O'Hara, CFP®, CRPC®, Founder and Senior Managing Partner at Ausperity Private Wealth.  In this episode, Rory shares the early career lessons he learned cold calling (communicate authority and grow a thick skin), how he helps his team learn and grow, and the ways his firm is helping baby boomers and high income millennials achieve their financial goals.

Co-Heads of Global Bonds, Jenna Barnard and John Pattullo discuss policy lags and why they believe the market is too pessimistic on inflation improvement but too optimistic on the growth environment.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Annie Ostrager and Tracy Richelle High, Co-Heads of S&C's Labor & Employment Group, discuss the Supreme Court's June 16 decision in United States ex. rel. Polansky v. Executive Health Resources and implications for qui tam whistleblowers.   The False Claims Act (FCA) authorizes qui tam actions by private parties, called “relators,” who sue on behalf of the United States. The government may intervene and take over litigating the case during the “seal period”—the window at the outset of the action during which the case is sealed. If the government chooses not to intervene, the relator litigates the action. But the government has a right to intervene later for “good cause.” In Polansky, the government chose not to intervene during the seal period, but years later, moved to dismiss the case. The relator argued that the government could not do so because it had not intervened during the seal period. The government responded that it could move to dismiss without intervening at all. The Supreme Court adopted neither position. Instead, it held that the government may move to dismiss over a relator's objection an FCA action so long as it moved to intervene at some point. Annie and Tracy note that the qui tam provision of the FCA remains a powerful tool for prosecutors to encourage whistleblowers to come forward.  But a relator's path to success may seem more uncertain after the Court's decision.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Annie Ostrager and Tracy Richelle High, Co-Heads of S&C's Labor & Employment Group, discuss recent developments in the Securities and Exchange Commission's whistleblowing program.  The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as modified by the Dodd-Frank Act, provides protections and incentives for whistleblowers who report potential violations of the securities laws. Dodd-Frank also incentivizes potential informants to come forward by authorizing the SEC to grant awards to whistleblowers. Annie and Tracy discuss two recent amendments by the SEC to its whistleblower program that appear to reflect the agency's readiness to grant more and larger awards. One authorizes the SEC to make awards for related, non-SEC actions, even if they may be more directly connected to other agencies. The second gives the SEC discretion to grant a larger award in appropriate circumstances. They also discuss two cases recently brought by whistleblowers against the SEC in the Third and Fifth Circuits involving the agency's denials of whistleblower awards. 

In a new episode of Head to Head, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Rachel Gottlieb, Managing Director - Wealth Management at UBS. In this episode Rachel shares how she turned a college internship into a career in financial services that landed her on lists like Forbes Top Next Gen Wealth Advisors, Forbes Top Women Wealth Advisors, and Wall Street's Top 40 Advisors Under 40.

780: Jared Cohen and George Lee, the Co-Heads of the Office of Applied Innovation at Goldman Sachs, delve into the intersections between global affairs, geopolitics, and cutting-edge technology such as generative AI. As leaders in the financial services industry and technology space, both executives provide valuable insights into the significance of geopolitical swing states and the current state of global affairs, as well as the rapid rise of generative AI, and the role government regulation plays in technological advancements.

780: Jared Cohen and George Lee, the Co-Heads of the Office of Applied Innovation at Goldman Sachs, delve into the intersections between global affairs, geopolitics, and cutting-edge technology such as generative AI. As leaders in the financial services industry and technology space, both executives provide valuable insights into the significance of geopolitical swing states and the current state of global affairs, as well as the rapid rise of generative AI, and the role government regulation plays in technological advancements.

In a new episode of Head to Head, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Scott Highmark, President and Principal of Mosaic Family Wealth. Scott shares how he went from being a college basketball athlete to becoming a financial advisor eventually opening his own firm. 

As the confidence level of homebuilders building new homes is increasing, will home sales go along with it? Jim Egan and Jay Bacow, Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research discuss.----- Transcript -----Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. It's Tuesday, May 23rd at 2 p.m. in New York. Jay Bacow: It's been a while since we talked about the state of the U.S. housing market. And it seems like if I look at least some portions of the data, things are getting better. In particular, the NAHB confidence just showed for the fifth consecutive month that homebuilders are feeling better about building a house, and we're now finally at the point where they say it is a good time to build a house. When you take a step back and just look at the state of the housing market, do you agree? Jim Egan: I think it's a great question. Housing statistics are going in a whole number of different directions right now. So, yeah, let me take a step back. We've talked a lot about affordability on this podcast and it's still challenging. We've talked a lot about supply and it remains very tight, and all of this has really fueled that bifurcation narrative that we've talked about, protected home prices, weaker activity. But if we think about how the lock in effect and that's the fact that all of these current homeowners who have mortgages well below the prevailing mortgage rate just are not going to be incentivized to list their home for sale, then kind of a logical next step from a housing statistics perspective is that new home sales are probably going to increase as a percentage of total home sales. And that's exactly what we're seeing, new home sales in the first quarter of this year, they were roughly 20% of the total single unit sales volumes. That's the largest share of transactions in any quarter since 2006. And this dynamic was actually quoted by the National Association of Homebuilders when describing the increase in homebuilder confidence that you quoted Jay. Jay Bacow: Okay, but when I think about that percentage, aren't building volumes in aggregate coming down? Jim Egan: They are, though, as a caveat, I would say that if we look at that seasonally adjusted annualized rate, it did increase sequentially a little bit, month-over-month in April. What I would point to here is that from the peak in single unit housing starts, and we think the peak in the cycle was April of 2022, those starts are down 22%. Now, that's finally started to make a dent in the backlog of homes under construction. Now, as a reminder, again, this is something we've talked about here, there are a number of factors from supply chain issues to labor shortages, that we're really serving to elongate, build timelines in the months and years after the onset of COVID. And all of those things caused a real backlog in the number of homes under construction, so homes were getting started, but they weren't really getting finished. We see the number of single unit homes under construction is now down 130,000 units from that peak. Now, don't get me wrong, that number is still elevated versus where we'd expected to be, given the sheer number of housing starts that we've seen over the past year. But this is a first step towards turning more positive on housing starts. And again, homebuilder confidence Jay, as you said, it's climbed higher every single month this year. Jay Bacow: Okay, but you said this is a first step in turning more positive on housing starts. We get the start, we get the unit under construction, we get a completion and then eventually we get a home sale, so what does this mean for sales volumes? Jim Egan: We would think that it's probably likely for new home sales to continue making up a larger than normal share of monthly volumes, but we don't think that sales are about to really inflect materially higher here. Purchase applications so far in May, they're still down 26% year-over-year versus the same month in 2022. Now, that's the best year-over-year number since August of last year, but it's not exactly something that screams sales are about to inflect higher. Similarly, pending home sales just printed their weakest March in the history of the index, and it's the sixth consecutive month that they've printed their weakest month in index history. So it was their weakest February, their weakest January, and so on and so forth, so we think all of this is kind of emblematic of a housing market, specifically housing sales that are finding a bottom, but not necessarily about to move much higher. Jay Bacow: Okay. Now, Jim, in the past, when you've talked about your outlook for home prices, you mentioned your four pillars. There is supply, demand, affordability and credit availability. We've talked about the first three of these, we haven't really talked about credit availability yet. Jim Egan: Right. And that's another one of the reasons why we don't necessarily see a real move higher in sales volumes because of the whole new regime for bank assets that we've talked about a lot. Jay, you've talked about how much it's going to impact things like the mortgage market, so what do we mean when we talk about a new regime for bank assets? Jay Bacow: Fundamentally, when you think about the business model of a bank, if you're going to simplify it, it's they get deposits in and then they either make loans or buy securities with those deposits and they try to match up their assets to liabilities. Now, in a world where there's a lot more deposit outflows and happening more frequently, banks are going to have to have shorter assets to match that. And as they have shorter assets, that means they're going to have tighter lending conditions, and that tighter lending conditions is presumably going to play into the credit availability that you're looking for in your space. Jim Egan: And when we combine that with affordability that's no longer deteriorating, but still challenged, supply that's no longer setting record lows each month, but still very tight. All of that is a world in which we don't think you're going to see significant increases in transaction volumes. I will say one thing on the home price front month-over-month increases are back. We've seen some seasonality from a home price perspective, but we still think that that year over year number is going to soften going forward. It remains positive in the cycle, but we think it will turn negative in the next few months for the first time since the first quarter of 2012. We don't think those year-over-year drops will be too substantial. Our base case forecast for the end of the year is down 4%, we think it will be a little bit stronger than that down 4% number, but we think it will be negative. Jay Bacow: Okay. But I like things to be a little bit stronger. And with that, Jim, always great talking to you. Jim Egan: Great talking to you, too, Jay. Jay Bacow: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts app and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

In a new episode of Head to Head, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Lara Rhame, Chief U.S. Economist at FS Investments. Lara shares how she landed her first job with the Fed and pivoted to a career on Wall Street and later, FS Investments.

Aubree Curtis and Liz Gray, Co-Heads of Global Brand Consulting and Social Impact at CAA https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubreecurtis/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-gray-b6176b24/ As co-heads of brand consulting and social impact at CAA, Aubree Curtis and Liz Gray know how to share the shine. They offer unending advice on leadership, how to find your crew, and what a network full of sponsors and mentors really means for your career. https://www.instagram.com/leadershipisfemale/ https://www.instagram.com/emilyjaenson/

Banks and the Fed are winding down activity in the mortgage market amid recent funding challenges, signaling a potential new regime for the asset class. Co-Heads of Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.----- Transcript -----Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing mortgage markets. It's Tuesday, April 11th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Jim Egan: Now, Jay, there has been lots of news recently about bank funding challenges, and the FDIC put both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in receivership. They just announced last week that $114 billion of their securities will be sold, over time, with those securities being primarily agency MBS. Now, that sounds like a pretty big number, can you tell us what the impact of this is? Jay Bacow: Sure. So, I think it's important first to realize that the agency mortgage market is the second most liquid fixed income market in the world after treasuries, and so the market is pretty easily able to quickly reprice to digest this news. And as a reminder, agency mortgages don't have credit risk, given the agency guarantee. Now, that $114 billion is a big number and about $100 billion of them are mortgages, and putting that $100 billion in context, we're only expecting about $150 billion of net issuance this year. So this is two thirds of the net supply of the market is going to come just from these portfolio liquidations. That's a lot, and that's before we even get into the composition of what they own. Jim Egan: Isn't a mortgage a mortgage? What do you mean by the composition of what they own? Jay Bacow: Well, yes, a mortgage is a mortgage, but what banks can do is that they can structure the mortgages to better fit the profile of what they want. And based on publicly disclosed data of when they bought, we assume that most of those mortgages right now have very low fixed coupons—in the context of 2%, well below the current prevailing rate for investors. Furthermore, about a third of the mortgages that the FDIC holds in receivership are these structured mortgages, they're still guaranteed, there's no credit risk, but these would be out of index investments for most money managers. Jim Egan: Well, can't banks buy them, though? Like, aren't these pretty typical bank bonds, two banks owned them in the first place? And if the bonds worked for a bank that time, why don't they work for a different bank now? Jay Bacow: So, part of what made them work for those banks is that they bought them around “par,” and given the low coupons that they have now, they're no longer at par. And for accounting reasons that we probably don't need to get into right now, banks typically don't like to buy bonds that are far away from par. Furthermore, the recent events have made banks likely to need to revisit a lot of the assumptions that they're making on the asset and liability side. In particular, they probably going to want to revisit the duration of their deposits, which is going to bias them towards owning shorter securities. The regulators are probably also going to want to revisit a lot of assumptions as well. And we think what's likely to happen is that they're going to make a lot of the smaller banks have the mark-to-market losses on their available for sale securities flow through to regulatory capital, which in conjunction with some of the other changes probably means banks are going to further bias their security purchases shorter in duration and lowering capital charges. Jim Egan: Okay. So, if the banks aren't going to be active and the Fed is already winding down their portfolio, who's really left to buy? Jay Bacow: Basically, money managers and overseas. And while spreads have widened out some, we think they're biased a little wider from here. Effectively, this is going to be the first year since 2009 that neither domestic banks or the Fed were net buying mortgages. And when you take away the two largest buyers of mortgages, that is a problem for the asset class. And so we think we're in a new regime for mortgages and a new regime for bank demand. Jim Egan: Jay, thank you for that clear explanation, and it's always great talking to you. Jay Bacow: Great talking to you, too, Jim. Jim Egan: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts app and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

In a new episode of Head to Head, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Patti Brennan, President and CEO of Key Financial. Patti shares how she went from working as an Oncology and ICU nurse to being one of the top financial advisors in America.

Co-Heads of Global Private Finance, Ian Fowler and Adam Wheeler discuss the current landscape in private credit markets, and how structural and cyclical forces are converging to create clear winners and losers among private credit managers. Episode Segments:(02:36) – The backdrop for private credit markets(04:36) – The macro picture in North America(07:59) – The health of middle market companies(11:15) – How the competitive landscape differs by region(18:14) – The factors that differentiate private credit managers(21:56) – How to think about fee structures(25:56) – Consolidation and structural change in private credit(35:55) – The state of ESG in private creditCertain statements about Barings LLC made by the participants herein may be deemed to be “testimonials” or “endorsements” as those terms are defined in rule 206(4)-1 under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Participants were not compensated in connection with their participation in this program, although in certain cases they are investors in Barings LLC sponsored vehicles. These investments subject such participants to potential conflicts of interest in making the statements herein.IMPORTANT INFORMATIONAny forecasts in this podcast are based upon Barings' opinion of the market at the date of preparation and are subject to change without notice, dependent upon many factors. Any prediction, projection or forecast is not necessarily indicative of the future or likely performance. Investment involves risk. The value of any investments and any income generated may go down as well as up and is not guaranteed. PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. Any examples set forth in this podcast are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not indicative of any future investment results or investments. The composition, size of, and risks associated with an investment may differ substantially from any examples set forth in this podcast. No representation is made that an investment will be profitable or will not incur losses. Barings is the brand name for the worldwide asset management and associated businesses of Barings LLC and its global affiliates. Barings Securities LLC, Barings (U.K.) Limited, Barings Global Advisers Limited, Barings Australia Pty Ltd, Barings Japan Limited, Barings Real Estate Advisers Europe Finance LLP, BREAE AIFM LLP, Baring Asset Management Limited, Baring International Investment Limited, Baring Fund Managers Limited, Baring International Fund Managers (Ireland) Limited, Baring Asset Management (Asia) Limited, Baring SICE (Taiwan) Limited, Baring Asset Management Switzerland Sarl, and Baring Asset Management Korea Limited each are affiliated financial service companies owned by Barings LLC (each, individually, an “Affiliate”).NO OFFER: The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument or service in any jurisdiction. The material herein was prepared without any consideration of the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of anyone who may receive it. This podcast is not, and must not be treated as, investment advice, an investment recommendation, investment research, or a recommendation about the suitability or appropriateness of any security, commodity, investment, or particular investment strategy.Unless otherwise mentioned, the views contained in this podcast are those of Barings and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may make different investment decisions for different clients. Parts of this podcast may be based on information received from sources we believe to be reliable. Although every effort is taken to ensure that the information contained in this podcast is accurate, Barings makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of the informationAny service, security, investment or product outlined in this podcast may not be suitable for a prospective investor or available in their jurisdiction.Copyright in this podcast is owned by Barings. Information in this podcast may be used for your own personal use, but may not be altered, reproduced or distributed without Barings' consent.23-2770648

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Annie Ostrager and Diane McGimsey, Co-Heads of S&C's Labor & Employment Group, discuss two recent decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits involving preemption and Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act. They analyze how those courts interpreted two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions addressing the FAA's scope in the employment context: Viking River Cruises v. Moriana and Southwest Airlines v. Saxon. In Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., the plaintiffs, who delivered baked goods to stores and restaurants, claimed they were transportation workers, which would exempt them from Section 1 of the FAA. The Second Circuit held that because the plaintiffs charged for the baked goods, the transportation was incidental and the plaintiffs were in the baked goods industry and therefore not excluded from the FAA. After the Supreme Court issued its Saxon ruling a month later, the Second Circuit panel reconsidered Bissonnette, but adhered to its original ruling, which affirmed the district court order compelling arbitration. In Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, a divided Ninth Circuit panel examined a California law, A.B. 51, that broadly prohibits employers from requiring mandatory arbitration agreements. Reversing a district court, the majority held that the A.B. 51's restrictions are valid but could not be enforced if an unlawful agreement was entered into. After the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Viking River Cruises, the Ninth Circuit panel reheard the case and came to the opposite conclusion, upholding the district court's injunction against A.B. 51. Annie and Diane said that in light of the Chamber of Commerce ruling, they expect California employers who had temporarily gotten rid of their arbitration agreements to be revising those policies. The Saxon and Bissonnette decisions left things less clear, but clients may wish to reexamine arbitration agreements to ensure employees' work is characterized properly.

In the inaugural episode of Head to Head, a new podcast from FireSide, Co-Heads of Distribution Kirsten Pickens and Ryan Robertson share their conversation with Cheryl Young,  Private Advisor at Rockefeller Global Family Office. Cheryl shares how she built her business and why she believes her authenticity sets her apart as a top advisor.

In this episode of S&C's Critical Insights, Isaac Wheeler and Davis Wang, Co-Heads of S&C's Tax Group, discuss the IRS's year-end guidance in areas including the scope of the stock buyback tax and the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA).    Isaac and Davis start off by discussing Internal Revenue Code Section 4501, commonly referred to as the one percent buyback tax, which is intended to encourage corporations to reinvest excess cash in their operations rather than buy back stock.  The IRS clarified that some transactions will not be considered buybacks, such as corporate liquidations for many SPACs, while redemptions of preferred stock do appear to be subject to the tax.   On FIRPTA, they discussed guidance to determine in if an entity qualifies for an exemption from U.S. real property holding company status, including whether the IRS will look through partnerships and certain corporations.

With housing data from the last few months of 2022 coming in weaker than expected, what might be in store for mortgage investors? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.----- Transcript -----Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. It's Thursday, January 19th at 11 a.m. in New York. Jay Bacow: So, Jim, the housing data hasn't been looking all that great recently. We've talked about this bifurcated outlook for the U.S. housing market, still holding that view? Jim Egan: So to catch people up, the bifurcated housing narrative was between housing activity. And by that we mean sales and housing starts and home prices. We thought there was going to be a lot more weakness in sales and starts at the end of 2022 and throughout 2023, then home prices, which we thought would be more protected. Since we came out with that outlook, it's safe to say that sales have been materially weaker than we thought they'd be. To put that into a little bit of context, existing home sales for the most recent month of data, which was November, showed the largest year over year decrease for that time series since the early 1980s. Pending home sales, we only have that data going back to 2001, but pending home sales just showed their weakest November in the entire history of that time series, so weaker than it was during the great financial crisis. Now, Jay, when we talk about those kind of weaker than anticipated sales volumes, what does that mean for your markets? Jay Bacow: Right. So while homeowners clearly are going to care about home prices, mortgage investors care more about the housing activity. And they care about that because that housing activity, those home sales, that results in supply to the market and it actually results in supply to the market from two different sides. There's the organic net supply from home sales. And then furthermore, because the Fed is doing QT, the faster the pace of home sales, the more the Fed balance sheet runoff is. And so as those home sales numbers come down, you get less supply to the market, which is inarguably good for mortgage investors. Now, the problem is mortgage spreads have repriced to reflect that at this point. Jim Egan: Now Jay, a lot of things have repriced. Jay Bacow: Right. And I think the question now is, is that going to keep up? But turning it over to you, what's causing this slowdown in home sales? And do we think that's going to continue? Jim Egan: I think in a word, it's affordability. A lot of the underlying premises behind our bifurcated narrative, we still see those there they're just impacting the market a little bit more than we thought they would. From an affordability perspective, and we've said this on this podcast before, the monthly mortgage payment as a percentage of household income has deteriorated more over the past year than really any year we have on record. From a numbers perspective, that payment's gone up over $700. That's a 58% increase. That's making it more difficult for first time buyers to buy homes and therefore pulling sales activity down. But where the bifurcation part of this narrative comes from, a lot of current homeowners have very low, call it maybe 3-3.5%, 30 year fixed rate mortgages. They're not incentivized to list their homes in this current environment and we're seeing that. Listing volumes are close to 40 year lows. In a month in which sales fall as sharply as they just did, we would expect months of supply at least to move higher and that roughly stayed flat. And so you have this lack of inventory, people aren't selling their homes, that means they're also not buying a home on the follow which pulls sales volumes down, leading to some of those numbers we talked about on top of just how long it's been since we've seen sales fall as sharply as they have. But on the other side of the equation, that's also keeping home prices a little bit more protected. Jay Bacow: Okay. So you mentioned affordability is impacting home sales, but then what's happening to actual home prices? Are they holding up then? Jim Egan: We think they will now. Don't hear what I'm not saying, that doesn't mean that home prices keep climbing. It just means that the pace with which they're going to slow down or the pace with which they're going to fall isn't as substantial as what we're going to see on the activity front. Now year over year HPA most recently up 9.2%. We think in the next month's print, that's going to slow to a little bit below 8% down to 7.9%. On a month over month basis from peak in June of 2022, home prices are off 3%. We think they'll fall a further 4% in 2023. But to kind of put some guardrails around that bifurcation narrative, that drop only brings us to the fourth quarter of 2021. That's 30% above where home prices were onset of the pandemic in March of 2020. On the sale side, our base case was that we were going to fall back to 2013 levels of transactions. And given how data has come in since then, it looks like we're heading lower than that. Jay Bacow: All right. So we think housing activity is going to continue to fall, but that slowdown in housing activity means that home prices, while seeing the first year on year decline since 2012, are going to be well supported. Jay Bacow [00:04:51] Jim, always a pleasure talking to you. Jim Egan: Great talking to you, too, Jay. Jay Bacow: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts app, and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

In the final installment of a two-part conversation, Steve Hendrickson, President of Ralph E. Davis Associates, an Opportune company, sits down with Dan Kohl and Daniel Rojo, Co-Heads & Managing Directors of Opportune Partners LLC, an independent investment banking and financial advisory affiliate of Opportune, to get their thoughts on how M&A and A&D deals are evolving and how they're structured and transacted as we turn the corner to 2023.

As month over month data begins to show a downturn in home prices, will overall price growth and sales begin to fall steeper than expected? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.----- Transcript -----Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, the other Co-head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing why home prices could turn negative in 2023. It's Thursday, October 6th, at 3 p.m. in New York. Jay Bacow: Jim, it seems like every month the housing data is getting worse when we look at the sales activity. But, now I think I just saw something about home prices falling? What's going on there? I thought we call it home price appreciation, now we're seeing home price depreciation? Jim Egan: There is a lot going on out there. There's a lot of volatility, things are moving fast, and yes, there are home price indices that are showing negative numbers. I would caveat that a lot of those negative numbers are month over month, not the year over year that we've typically talked about here. But that doesn't mean it isn't important. Jay Bacow: In the past we've talked about this bifurcation narrative where we were going to get a big drop in home sales and housing starts, which we've seen, but home prices were more protected. Do you still believe that? Jim Egan: We do still believe in the bifurcation narrative, but the levels of the forecasts have changed, and they've changed for a couple of reasons. I think one reason is that there have been a number of forecast changes, expectations for 2023 are different. Our U.S. economics team has raised their hiking forecast 25 basis points in each of the next three meetings, and our interest rate team on the back of that forecast change has moved up their expectations for the 10 year Treasury. What that move means for us is that the incredible affordability deterioration that we've seen, probably isn't going to get a whole lot better next year. And that's happening in a world in which you mentioned some home prices turning negative. The home price deceleration that we were calling for, from plus 20% all the way down to plus 3% at the end of next year, that relied upon or I can say we expected home prices to fall month over month, but we thought that was going to start in September. It started in July. Sales volumes have been coming in weaker than we thought they would. When we take that weaker than expected housing data, we marry that with different expectations for affordability next year, the forecasts have to change. Jay Bacow: And so what exactly are we forecasting for this year and next year? Jim Egan: So in this world, we do think that sales are going to fall steeper than we thought. We think that starts are going to fall steeper than we thought, and that next year a single unit starts are going to be lower in 2023 than they were in 2022. We had originally been forecasting a return to growth in 2023, but the change to the forecast that's getting the most attention is that we went from plus 3% year over year growth in December of 2023 to -3% year over year growth by the end of next year. Jay Bacow: So if I buy a house today, it might be lower a year from now? That seems worrisome. Jim Egan: Yes. And I think there is a positive and a negative headline to that, right. The negative headline, the worrisome, if you will, that you mentioned is that not only is it down 3% next year, but that's down 7% from where we are right now. The positive headline is that even with that decrease in home prices from today, that only brings us back to January of 2022. That's 32% above where they were in March of 2020. Jay Bacow: All right, that doesn't seem so bad, given that stocks are a lot lower than where they were in January of 2022. So it's more stalling out than a real correction in home prices. But, why wouldn't home prices fall further from there? Jim Egan: We haven't seen anything in the data that changes kind of the underlying narrative that we've been discussing on this podcast in the past. In particular, two things. The first is how robust credit standards have been. If anything, lending standards, which were pretty tight to begin with in the first quarter of 2020, have tightened substantially since then. What that means, again, it constrains sales volumes. We think sales are going to fall more than home prices, but it also means that the likelihood of defaults and foreclosures is limited. And it is those distressed transactions, those forced sellers that we would need to see a leg down in prices. The other point is, away from defaults and foreclosures, actual inventory is still incredibly low. And because current homeowners sit on 30 year fixed rate mortgages, well below the current mortgage rate, when we talk about affordability deteriorating, we're not talking about it deteriorating for current homeowners. They're much more likely to stay in their home, much less likely to list their home for sale, they're not going to be selling into depressed bids. So that credit availability and those tight lending standards, we think that keeps home prices supported. Jay Bacow: So home prices are protected because we're not going to get the forced sellers that we saw during the financial crisis and the fundamentals of the housing market are in much stronger footing. What would actually get you, though, to forecast more of a real correction than just the stalling out? Jim Egan: I'm going to make this really complicated and say the supply and demand. If demand were to be weaker than we already think it is, and that could happen because the historic deterioration we've seen in affordability has a bigger impact than we think it will. Maybe because the unemployment rate picks up faster than we're expecting it to next year. If you have a much weaker demand environment than we're already envisioning, and you combine that with more supply, perhaps people who'd be a little bit more willing to part with their home at slightly lower prices than we expect them to, people who've owned their home for 10, 15, 20 years and might be looking to downsize. That's where you might have a little bit more of a marriage between uneconomic sellers and depressed demand that could bring home prices lower than we expect. Now, how does all of that, if we think about the implications to investors, what does all that mean for the MBS market? Jay Bacow: I'm going to make this really complicated, too. A lot of it comes down to supply and demand. The lack of housing activity and the lower home prices means that there's going to be less supply for mortgage investors to buy. That's good for the mortgage market. The rapid increase in unaffordability has been because of the rapid increase in implied volatility, which is bad for mortgage investors. This has brought nominal spread to the Treasury curve for agency mortgages to levels that are basically at the post GFC wides. And we think that move is a little bit overdone. And so for institutional investors we think this is an opportunity to own agency mortgages versus treasuries as a way to fade some of these moves, and take advantage of some of the more forward looking supply projections that we think will be coming as supply slows down. Jay Bacow: But Jim, it's always great talking to you. Jim Egan: Great talking to you too, Jay. Jay Bacow: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcast app and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

While home price appreciation appears to be slowing, and a rapid increase in supply is hitting the market, how will housing prices fare through the rest of the year and into 2023? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jay Bacow and Jim Egan discuss.-----Transcript------Jim Egan: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jim Egan, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow. The other Co-Head of U.S. Securities Products Research. Jim Egan: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing supply and demand in the U.S. housing market. It's Wednesday, September 7th, at 3 p.m. in New York. Jay Bacow: All right, Jim. Housing headlines have started to get a little more bleak. Home price appreciation slowed pretty materially with last week's print. Now, your call has been that activity is going to decrease, but home prices are going to keep growing. Where do we stand on that? Jim Egan: We would say that the bifurcation narrative still holds. We think housing activity metrics, and when we say housing activity we're specifically talking about home sales and housing starts, have some continued sharp declines in the months to come. But we do think that home prices are going to continue growing on a year over year basis, even despite a disappointing print that you mentioned from last week. Jay Bacow: But I have to askv, what are you looking at that gives you confidence in your home price call? Where could you be wrong given the slowdown we just saw? Jim Egan: We say a lot of fancy sounding things when we talk about the housing market, but ultimately they're just different ways of describing supply and demand. Demand is weakening. That's that drop in activity we're forecasting. But supply is also very tight and that contributes to our view that while home price growth needs to slow, it should remain positive on a year over year basis. Jay Bacow: All right, but haven't some metrics of supply been moving higher? Jim Egan: Look, we knew we were not going to be able to say that supply was historically tight forever. Existing inventories are now climbing year over year for the first time in 37 months. And another very popular metric of supply, months of supply, is effectively getting a 1-2 punch right now. Months of supply measures how much the current supply of housing listed for sale, would take to clear at current demand levels. So in a world in which supply is increasing and demand is falling, you have a numerator climbing and a denominator falling, so you're effectively supercharging months of supply, if you will. We were at a cycle low of 2.1 months of inventory, the lowest we've seen in at least three and a half decades, in January of this year. We're at 4.1 months of supply just six months later. Jay Bacow: So that number is a lot higher, but 4.1 months of supply is still really low. Isn't there some old saying that anything less than six months of supply is a seller's market? So wouldn't that be good for home prices? Jim Egan: Yes. And given recent work that we've done, we think that that saying is there for good reason. If we go back to the mid 1980s, so the Case-Shiller index that we're forecasting here that's as far back as this index goes. And every single time that months of supply has been below six, the Case-Shiller index was still appreciating six months forward. Home prices were still climbing, six months forward. So the absolute level of inventory is in a pretty healthy place despite the recent increases. However, that rate of change is a little concerning. We've gone from 2.1 months to 4.1 months over just six months of actual time, and when we look at that rate of change historically, it actually does tend to predict falling home prices a year forward. So, absolute level of inventory leaves us confident in continued home price growth, but the rate of change of that underlying inventory calls continued home price growth in 2023 into question. Jay Bacow: So we're going to have more inventory, but the pace has been accelerating. How do we think about the pace of that increase?Jim Egan: If that pace were to continue at its current levels, that would make us really concerned about home prices next year. But we do think the pace of inventory growth is going to slow and we think that for two main reasons. The two biggest inputs into inventory are new inventories and existing. New inventories, and we've talked about this on the podcast before, we think they're about to really slow down. Homebuilder confidence is down 43% from cycle peaks in November of 2020. Part of that's the affordability deterioration we talked about earlier, but it's also because of a backlog in the building process. Single unit starts are back to 1997 levels. Units under construction, so between starts and completions, are back to 2004 levels - it is taking longer to finish those homes. And we have had a forecast that we thought that was going to lead to single unit starts slowing down, it finally has over the past two months after plateauing for almost a year. We think they're going to continue to fall pretty precipitously in the back half of this year, which should mean that new inventory stop climbing at the same pace that they've been climbing. Existing inventories also should stop their current pace of climb because of the lock in effect that we've talked about here before. Effectively, current homeowners have been able to lock in very low mortgage rates over the course of the past two years. They're not going to be incentivized to list their homes at similar rates to historical places because of that lock in effect. So for both of those reasons, we think the pace of increase in inventory is going to slow, and that's why we continue to think that home prices are going to grow on a year over year basis. They're just going to slow from 18% now, to 9% by the end of this year, to 3% by the end of 2023. Jay Bacow: Okay. So effectively the low amount of absolute supply is going to keep home prices supported. The change in the amount of supply makes us a little bit more cautious on home prices on a longer term outlook. But we think that pace of that change is going to slow down.Jay Bacow: Jim, always a pleasure talking to you. Jim Egan: Great talking to you too, Jay. Jay Bacow: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on the Apple Podcasts app and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

As lending standards tighten and banks get ready to make some tough choices, how will the housing market fare if loan growth slows? Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.-----Transcript-----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jim Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jay Bacow: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing how tightening lending standards could impact housing activity. It's Tuesday, August 9th, at 11 a.m. in New York. Jim Egan: Now Jay, you published a high level report last week with Vishy Tirupattur, who is the Head of Fixed Income Research here at Morgan Stanley, on the coming capital crunch. Basically, rising capital pressures will mean that banks will have to make tough choices in their lending books. Is that about right? Jay Bacow: Yeah, that's it. Basically, we don't think that markets have really appreciated the impact of the combination of how rising rates caused losses on banks portfolios, the regulatory changes and the results of the stress test capital buffers. All of these things are going to require banks to look at the composition of not just the assets that they own, but their business models in general. Our large cap banking analyst Betsy Graseck thinks that banks are going to look at things differently to come up with different solutions depending on the bank, but in general across the industry, expects lending standards to tighten for this year and in 2023, and for loan growth to slow. So, Jim, if banks are going to tighten lending standards then what does that mean for housing activity? Jim Egan: I think, especially if we look at home sales, that's a negative for sales volumes and home sales are already falling. We've talked about affordability deterioration on this podcast a few times now, not just the fact of where affordability is in the housing market, but how rapidly it's deteriorating. If lending standards are going to tighten on top of those affordability pressures, then that just argues for potentially an even more substantial decrease in sales volumes going forward, and we're already seeing this in the data. Through the first half of the year new home sales are down 14% versus the first half of 2021. Purchase applications, that's our highest frequency data point that we have, they're getting progressively weaker each month. They were down 17% year over year in June, 19% year over year in July. Existing home sales, and that's referencing a much larger volume of sales then new home sales, they're down a comparatively strong 8% year to date. But with all of the dynamics that we're discussing, we believe that they're going to see a much more precipitous drop in the second half of the year. We have it down over 15% year over year versus 2021. Now, that's because of affordability pressures. It's because of the potential for tightening lending standards. It's also because of the lock in effect from a rate perspective. Jay Bacow: On that lock in effect, with just 2% of the market having incentive to refinance, lenders are sitting there and saying, well, what do we do in this environment where we can't just give people a rate refi? Now, you mentioned the purchase activity, that's obviously one area, but Black Knight just reported another quarterly record of untapped equity in the housing market, and consumers would love to be able to tap that. The problem is when you do a cash out refinance, you end up increasing the rate on your entire mortgage. And homeowners don't want to do that. So they'd love to do something like a home equity line of credit or second lien where they're getting charged the higher rate on just the equity they take out. But the problem is it's harder to originate those in an environment where lending standards are tightening, particularly given the capital allocation against those type of loans can be onerous. Jim Egan: Right. And the level of conversations around an increase in kind of the second lien or the hill market have certainly been picking up over the past weeks and months, both on the originator side, on the investor side, as people look to find ways to access that record amount of equity that you mentioned in the housing market. Jay Bacow: Thinking about trying, people are still trying to sell houses and you just commented on the housing activity, but what about the prices they're selling at? Some of the recent data was pretty surprising. Jim Egan: The most recent month of data, I think the point that has raised the most eyebrows was the average or median price of new home sales saw a pretty significant month over month decrease. We continue to see month over month increases in the median and average price of existing home sales at. When we think about average and median prices, there's a mix shift issue there. So month over month, depending on the types of homes that sell things can move. What we actually forecast, the repeat sales index Case-Shiller, we're starting to see a slowdown in growth. The past two months have been consecutive deceleration in the pace of home price growth. I think the thing that we'd highlight most is the growing geographic pervasiveness of the slowdown. Two months ago, 11 of the Case-Shiller 20 city index was showing a deceleration month over month. This past month, it was 16. Now, all 20 cities continue to show home price growth, but again, 16 are showing that pace slowdown. There is some regional specificity to this, the cities that continue to accelerate largely in Florida, Miami and Tampa to name two. Jay Bacow: Okay. So that's what we've seen. What do we expect to see on a go forward basis? Jim Egan: We talked about our expectations for sales a few minutes ago. I think the one thing that we do want to highlight is on the starts front, we think that single unit starts are going to start to decrease over the course of the back half of this year. There's a couple of reasons for that. We talked about affordability pressures, another dynamic that's been playing out in the space is that there's been a backlog not just of housing starts, but before those starts to get the completion units under construction has swollen back to 2004 levels, starts themselves are only at 1997 levels. We do think that that is going to kind of disincentivize starts going forward. We're already starting to see it a little bit in the underlying data, trailing 12 month single unit starts had plateaued for largely a year. They've been down the past two months, we think that they're going to continue to fall in the back half of this year. It's already playing through from a sentiment perspective, homebuilder confidence is down 39% from its peak in November of 2020, and that's being driven by their perception of traffic on their sites as well as their perception of future sales conditions. So we do think that starts are going to fall because a number of these dynamics. And we think that home price growth is going to remain positive and we've highlighted this on this podcast before, but the pace is going to start slowing pretty materially in the back half of this year. The most recent print was 19.7%, down from over 20%, but we think it gets all the way to 9% by December 2022, 3% by December 2023. So continued home price growth, but the pace is going to slow pretty materially. Jim Egan: Jay, thanks for taking the time to talk. Jay Bacow: Jim. Always a pleasure. Jim Egan: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

With home prices hitting new highs and inventory hitting new lows, the differences between now and the last housing bubble may help ease investors' worries that the market is about to burst. Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.-----Transcript-----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jim Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jay Bacow: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing the path for both housing prices, housing activity and agency mortgages through the end of the year. It's Thursday, June 16th, at noon in New York. Jay Bacow: Jim, it seems like every time we come on this podcast, there's another record in the housing market. And this time it's no different. Jim Egan: Absolutely not. Home prices just set a new record, 20.6% year over year growth. They set a new month over month growth record. Affordability, when you combine that growth in home prices with the increase we've seen in mortgage rates, we've deteriorated more in the past 12 months than any year that we have on record. And a lot of that growth can be attributed to the fact that inventory levels are at their lowest level on record. Consumer attitudes toward buying homes are worse than they've been since 1982. That's not a record, but you get my point. Jay Bacow: All right. So we're setting records for home prices. We're setting records for change in affordability. With all these broken records, investors are understandably a little worried that we might have another housing bubble. What do you think? Jim Egan: Look, given the run up in housing in the 2000s and the fact that we,ve reset the record for the pace of home price growth, investors can be permitted a little anxiety. We do not think there is a bubble forming in the U.S. housing market. There are a number of reasons for that, two things I would highlight. First, the pre GFC run up in home prices, that was fueled by lax lending standards that really elevated demand to what we think were unsustainable levels. And that ultimately led to an incredible increase in defaults, where borrowers with risky mortgages were not able to refinance and their only real option at that point was foreclosures. This time around, lending standards have remained at the tight end of historical ranges, while supply has languished at all time lows. And that demand supply mismatch is what's driving this increase in prices this time around. The second reason, we talked about affordability deteriorating more over the past 12 months than any year on record. That hit from affordability is just not as widely spread as it has been in prior mortgage markets, largely because most mortgages today are fixed rate. We're not talking about adjustable rate mortgages where current homeowners can see their payments reset higher. This time around a majority of borrowers have fixed rate mortgages with very affordable payments. And so they don't see that affordability pressure. What they're more likely to experience is being locked in at current rates, much less likely to list their home for sale and exacerbating that historically tight inventory environment that we just talked about. Jay Bacow: All right. So, you don't think we're going to have another housing bubble. Things aren't going to pop. So does that mean we're going to continue to set records? Jim Egan: I wouldn't say that we're going to continue to set records from here. I think that home prices and housing activity are going to go their separate ways. Home prices will still grow, they're just going to grow at a slower pace. Home sales is where we are really going to see decreases. Those affordability pressures that we've talked about have already made themselves manifest in existing home sales, in purchase applications, in new home sales, which have seen the biggest drops. Those kinds of decreases, we think those are going to continue. That lack of inventory, the lack of foreclosures from what we believe have been very robust underwriting standards, that keeps home prices growing, even if at a slower pace. That record level we just talked about? That was 20.6% year over year. We think that slows to 10% by December of this year, 3% by December of 2023. But we're not talking about home prices falling and we're not talking about a bubble popping. Jim Egan: But with that backdrop, Jay, you cover the agency mortgage backed securities markets, a large liquid way to invest in mortgages, how would you invest in this? Jay Bacow: So, buying a home is generally the single largest investment for individuals, but you can scale that up in the agency mortgage market. It's an $8.5 trillion market where the government has underwritten the credit risk and that agency paper provides a pretty attractive way to get exposure to the housing outlook that you've described. If housing activity is going to slow, there's less supply to the market. That's just good for investors. And the recent concern around the Fed running off their balance sheet, combined with high inflation, has meant that the spread that you get for owning these bonds looks really attractive. It's well over 100 basis points on the mortgages that are getting produced today versus treasuries. It hasn't been over 100 basis points for as long as it has since the financial crisis. Jim, just in the same way that you don't think we're having another housing bubble, we don't think mortgages are supposed to be priced for financial crisis levels. Jim Egan: Jay, thanks for taking the time to talk. Jay Bacow: Great speaking with you, Jim. Jim Egan: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.