Will 2025 Be a Turning Point for Credit?

Our Head of Corporate Credit Research Andrew Sheets recaps an exceptional year for credit — but explains why 2025 could be a more challenging year for the asset class. ----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, head of Corporate Credit Research at Morgan Stanley. Today I’ll be discussing the Outlook for global Credit Markets in 2025. It’s Monday, Dec 2nd at 2 pm in London. Morgan Stanley Strategists and Economists recently completed our forecasting process for the year ahead. For Credit, 2025 looks like a year of saying goodbye. 2024 has been an exceptionally good environment for credit. As you’ve probably grown tired of hearing, credit is an asset class that loves moderation and hates extremes. And 2024 has been full of moderation. Moderate growth, moderating inflation and gradual rate cuts have defined the economic backdrop. Corporates have also been moderate, with stable balance sheets and still-low levels of corporates buying each other despite the strong stock market. The result has been an almost continuous narrowing of the extra premium that companies have to pay relative to governments, to some of the lowest, i.e. best spread levels in over 20 years. We think that changes. The U.S. election and resulting Republican sweep have now ushered in a much wider range of policy outcomes – from tariffs, to taxes, to immigration. These policies are in turn driving a much wider range of economic outcomes than we had previously, to scenarios that include everything from much greater corporate optimism and animal spirits, to much weaker growth and higher inflation, under certain scenarios of tariffs and immigration. Now, for some asset classes, this wider range of outcomes may simply be a wash, balancing out in the aggregate. But not for credit. This asset class doesn’t stand to return more if corporate activity booms; but it stands to still lose if growth slows more than expected. And given the challenges that tariffs could pose to both Europe and Asia, we think these dynamics are global. We see spreads modestly wider next year, across global regions. But if 2025 is about saying goodbye to the credit-friendly moderation of 2024, we’d stress this is a long goodbye. A key element of our economic forecasts is that even if major changes are coming to tariffs or taxes or immigration policy, that won’t arrive immediately. Today’s strong, credit-friendly economy should persist – well into next year. Indeed, for most of the first half of 2025, Morgan Stanley’s forecasts look much like today: moderate growth, falling inflation, and falling central bank rates. In short, when thinking about the year ahead, 2025 may be a turning point for credit – but one that doesn’t arrive immediately. Our best estimate is that we continue to see quite strong and supportive conditions well into the first half of the year, while the second half becomes much more challenging. We think leveraged loans offer the strongest risk-adjusted returns in Corporate Credit, while Agency Mortgages offer an attractive alternative to corporates for those looking for high quality spread. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.