Morgan Stanley (MS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Morrning. On behalf of Morgan Stanley. I will begin the call with the following disclaimer. call is being recorded. During today's presentation we will refer to our earnings release and financial supplement copies of which are available at Morgan stanley.com. Today's presentation may include forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to our notices regarding forward looking statements and non GAAP measures that appear in the earnings release. Presentation may not be duplicated or reproduced without our consent. I will now turn the call over to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Gorman.

James Gorman - Chairman and CEO

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We started the second quarter with significant headwinds and uncertainties and it's fair to say that we ended the quarter roll in a better place to better turn when to reflect the ongoing market transition from a high inflation low rate environment to a higher rate or inflation environment. In addition, there was several other issues impacting the markets. People started on the heels of the first bank crisis since 2008. We've had the risk of bleeding into the broader financial system, the action by regulators and what not to be idiosyncratic stories of the failed banks. bind with the strength and support from the large US banks hoped to rebalance the system. Can we found a country moving headlong into a debt ceiling crisis? Our view was it was likely to be resolved. There's no doubt it created unnecessary uncertainty in the markets in April and May easily after rapidly rising rates of 15 months of Fed reached a pause if not a plateau at its recent meeting.

While we may not be quite at the end of rate increases, I believe we're very very close to it. Certainly strong rhetoric from government leaders from both the US and China in recent weeks. It's evident but there's now been recent efforts to normalize relations and a constructive dialogue is surely welcomed. In these four not insignificant macro concerns progress positively reported a more constructive tone in the markets, particularly evidence in the last few weeks of the quarter. On more macro issues where Morgan Stanley completed a significant part of the trade back office integration, the final part to be completed after Labor Day and we're very pleased with how it's gone.