Hear our perspective on market action following the Fed's change in direction, and what it means for our 2024 outlook. ----- Transcript -----Vishy Tirupattur: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist. In this special episode I'm joined by my colleague and Global Head of Cross-Asset Strategy, Serena Tang. Along with our colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, we'll be talking about how our views have evolved since we published our 2024 outlook over a month ago. It's Tuesday, December 19th, at 10 a.m. in New York. Vishy Tirupattur: Hello, Serena. Thank you for joining me in the show. Serena Tang: Very happy to join you. Vishy Tirupattur: Since we published our 2024 outlook, we've had some big moves across markets. So how do you think our views have changed from your perch as the Head of Cross-Asset Strategy? Serena Tang: Markets have moved a lot and have moved very, very quickly. When we first published our outlook just a month ago, you and I both had investors push back on our macro strategy team's forecast of U.S. ten year Treasury yields at below 4%. And you know what? We are at those levels now. In a similar vein, MSCI EM, which is the broad index of emerging market equities that we track, that is at our equity strategies price target. And we are now also through our base case target for U.S. high grade corporate bonds. So I would say this has shifted our short term views. Our U.S. rate strategy team, they've recently gone tactically neutral on government bonds as the markets have repriced quickly, maybe a bit too quickly. Now, that being said, on a strategic horizon, my team and I have been arguing for a strong preference for high quality fixed income over higher beta assets going into 2024. In large part because risky assets like equities, like high yield corporate bonds, they have been pricing in a perfect landing and not paying investors enough premium for the risk that the world may be less than perfect. And the assets which have valuation cushion right now, especially after rally we've seen these past few weeks, is still high grade fixed income. You know U.S. yields are close to post global financial crisis highs, while equity risk premiums have been falling most of this past year. So, yes, markets have moved, but our strategic view of being overweight in high quality fixed income over higher beta markets have not changed. So for you Vishy, you know, when we published our year ahead outlook, we had some pushback, not just on the rates view but also on a forecast for the Fed to cut four times next year. The market is clearly moved beyond that now. What do you think has driven that rally? Vishy Tirupattur: Serena, the pushback we had was really about the motivation and timing of the Fed cuts. As you know, our economists are calling for cuts starting in June as the economy and inflation begin to decelerate. Some people initially pushed back on this idea, that the Fed starts cutting rates before we get to the 2% core PCE target rate. After the downward surprise in CPI last week and more so after the FOMC meeting, which came across more dovish than the markets as well as us expected, the market narrative, including the pushback we've been getting, have dramatically changed. Clearly, the markets interpreted the messaging from the FOMC statement, the dot plot and the press conference to be unequivocally dovish. The changes in the market narratives notwithstanding, we continue to expect 100 basis point cuts over 2024. I would note that in a world where inflation is falling, standard economic models would prescribe rate cuts and in 2024 inflation is projected to fall further. And because the Fed targets the level of real leads to maintain the same level of restraint, the Fed needs to cut nominal rates in line with falling inflation. This is the reasoning we see behind Fed's projection for cutting cycle to begin next year. Cutting the policy rate is not to