Welcome and thoughts on the market. I'm Mike Wilson, Chief Investment Officer and Chief

U.S. Equity Strategist for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety

of perspectives, I'll be talking about the latest trends in the financial marketplace.

It's Monday July 29th at 9 a.m. Eastern, so let's get after it. It seems like in order to do

well over the past 18 months investors had to remember one simple doctrine.

Don't fight the Fed.

In 2018, the Fed's tightening led to a lot of pain.

While this year's dovish pivot has put concerns to bed.

I'm not suggesting that investing is that simple, but monetary policy does matter and can have an immediate and significant impact on asset prices.

After a 20% decline in the fourth quarter last year, followed by a 20% rally this year,

we find ourselves in an interesting crossroad

as the Fed gets ready to meet tomorrow on Wednesday

to decide what to do with interest rates.

On that score, there's agreement

by market participants and commentators

that the Fed will decide to lower interest rates at this meeting.

The only open questions are whether they will cut 25 or 50 basis points

and will it be enough.

And the size of the cut are economics and rates. 50 basis points and will it be enough?

And the size of the cut are economics and rate strategy teams agree that the

Fed is likely to cut 50 basis points.

This compares to the consensus which is leaning towards a 25 basis point cut.

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