U.S. Financials Conference: Three Key Themes to Watch

Our analysts Betsy Graseck, Manan Gosalia and Ryan Kenny discuss the major discussions they expect to highlight Morgan Stanley’s upcoming U.S. Financials conference.

Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.

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Betsy Graseck: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Betsy Graseck, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Large Cap Bank Analyst and Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research. 

Today we take a look at the key debates in the U.S. financials industry. 

It’s Monday, June 9th at 10:30am in New York.

Tomorrow Morgan Stanley kicks off its annual U.S. Financials Conference right here in New York City. We wanted to give you a glimpse into some of the most significant themes that we expect will be addressed at the conference. And so, I'm here with two of my colleagues, Manan Gosalia, U.S. Midcap Banks Analyst, and Ryan Kenny, U.S. Midcaps Advisor Analyst.

Investors are grappling with navigating economic uncertainty from new tariff policies, inflation concerns, and immigration challenges – all of which impacts financial growth and credit quality. On the positive side, they are also looking closely at regulatory shifts under the Trump administration, which could ease banking rules for the first time since the Great Financial Crisis.

Let's hear what our experts are expecting. Manan, ahead of the conference, what key themes do you expect mid-cap banks will highlight?

Manan Gosalia: So, there are three key themes that we've been focused on for the mid-cap banks: loan growth, net interest margins, and capital. So, first on loan growth. Loan growth for the regional banks has been fairly tepid at about 2 to 3 percent year-on-year, and the tone from bank management teams has been fairly mixed in the April earning season that followed the tariff announcements on April 2nd. 

Some banks were starting to see the uncertainty weigh on corporate decision making and borrowing activity, while others were only seeing a slow down in some parts of their portfolio, with a pickup in other parts. Now that we've had two months to digest the announcements and several more positive developments on tariff negotiations, we expect that the tone from bank management teams will be more positive. Now, we don't expect them to say growth is accelerating, but we do expect that they will say loan growth is holding up with strong pipelines. 

On the second topic, net interest margins, we expect to hear that there is still room for margin expansion as we go through this year. And that's coming in two places, particularly as bank term deposits continue to reprice lower. And then the back book of fixed rate loans and securities, essentially assets that were put on the books four to five years ago when rates were a lot lower, are now rolling over at today's higher rates. 

Betsy Graseck: So, is the long end of the curve going up a good thing?

Manan Gosalia: Yes, for net interest margins. But on the flip side, the tenure going up is slightly negative for bank capital. So that brings me to my third theme. The regional banks are overall in a much better place on capital than they were two years ago. Balance sheets have improved. Capital levels remain solid across the sector. But the recent increase in the long end of the curve is marginally negative for capital, given that there will be a higher negative mark on securities that banks hold. 

But we believe that higher capital levels that regional banks have accumulated over the past couple of years will help cushion some of these negative marks, and we don't expect the recent shift in the tenure will have a meaningful impact on bank capital p