YouSaid · the spoken record

Mike Wilson

lines on the record: 87
first: 2024-09-05
most recent: 2024-09-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And we did, and that's why we got 2020-21 so right because we agreed with Professor Siegel in April of 2020. We said, look out for the inflation. And the people thought we were nuts.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because now we're going into a period where probably fiscal support is going to have to wane. We have an election, obviously, that could affect that too. And also a policy now from the Fed may be late and forthcoming. We don't know the answer yet. So I think it's almost like a mirror image of last year where everybody was so certain it was going to be a recession. And of course, the majority was wrong. Now everybody's so certain it's going to be a soft landing. Who's to say that they're not going to be wrong? You just don't know. So I think that's where I come out on the market overall at the index level. We're not as bullish as others because we don't think the multiples reflect that there's still this risk that's probably 20-30% at least”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of use it in a way which I think is misused. But, anyways, we can leave that where it is. And I guess this is where I come out in the story, which is I don't think that they've extinguished the risk of a hard landing.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, a lot of the traditional indicators were a flashed a wrong sign. I mean, you know, historically, that probably would have played out. And my personal view is that we had incredible policy support last year, mostly on the fiscal side Which essentially allowed the cycle to extend itself. I mean, if you take out the government spending, you probably are in a recession in a private economy. And look, many people have highlighted this too, ourselves included. We have been in a recession in many sectors, kind of a rolling recession. Term that we sort of invented in 2018, which I regret now because now people.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, so that actually made us feel then, oh my goodness, they probably overdid it. And that's going to lead to probably a hard landing in 2023, but we weren't alone in that view, by the way.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were very aggressive in 2020 and 2021. And we don't get necessarily a lot of credit, but our clients give us credit. We caught all that upside. And so part of that call was just like, look, we've had this massive move. It's mainly because of policy. We've overshot. We've had overconsumption from the pandemic and all the benefits that were sent out to people. Valuations are now out of touch with the reality of the Feds are going to have to raise rates. We kind of use this interesting narrative called Fire and Ice, right? The inflation will lead to basically slow down because of the raise rates. And that all narrative just really worked nicely. Having been so right in 2020 and 2021 on the upside, the call to kind of faded into 21 was actually pretty easy.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think what set us up was we got the low right in 2020 for the right reasons. We kind of came into the pandemic more bearish than most because we thought it was late cycle. Then we got the pandemic. And it was, to us, a really fat pitch.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those types of calls don't come around every week. Those types of calls tend to happen when things are extreme levels. You see the risk reward being unbalanced and you take a swing.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, you can't always be Sometimes to help them see around the corner, and they know that we're not afraid to help them look around the corner. Okay, whether it's bullish or bearish, it doesn't really matter. It's more of like, what's not priced right now? What is priced right now is a soft landing. And that is the base case scenario for most people. So you have to ask yourself, okay, well, what happens if that soft landing narrative is challenged? Does mean it's a hard landing just means it's challenged? Well, that means valuations are probably too high. And that could set off a chain reaction that that's why you get a correction. That was kind of the rationale back in early July.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, market dislocation always creates sort of opportunity. You know, this year has been very calm from a volatility standpoint, and that's somewhat boring, right? So we felt like in early July that had gotten kind of extreme. There was stuff that was peering its way out and the risk reward was not as good. Now, 10% corrections are very common. That's not really that big of a bold call. That's just saying, hey, things are extended. It worked out. Timing was actually quite good. Okay, great. What I would say is that the ability to read the tea leaves, I would view myself as very good at that. And that's not a humble statement, but I think it's an accurate statement. Like that's, we've built our career being able to see around the corner maybe a little bit earlier than some people because we look at the market so closely, the market tells you kind of what's about to happen.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And of course, we don't get all those right either. But I still enjoy that. Lately, we have not been doing as much of that because, going back to what I said a minute ago, policy has been so important in the last, really since COVID that it has kind of screwed up some of our indicators in a way where it hasn't been as easy to had that conviction level. You get run over by policy, both on the upside and the downside. And so we feel like we have an edge in is calling those relative value trades. And we've had great success in that in the last 12 to 18 months, even though perhaps maybe our market call in the last 12 months has been not as good.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would say it's changed completely. I think that there are times in the markets where the big pitch is easier to go after. I still, I'm a big elephant hunter. I still view myself as I tend to be more contrarian because I think that's where you make the big money. All my good calls have been going against the grain, whether it's bullish or bearish. I would say we get tagged with being more bearish and bullish. I would say we're just more balanced. But when we make big calls in the past, they tend to be an important turning points.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On your ideas, you're really good. Think about overachievers. And we recruit, you know, we talk to people, young people always say, you probably haven't even ever had a B on your report. They can't imagine getting a B. Well, get ready to have a bunch of F's. And that's humbling is to say, hey, this is difficult. And you're going to be wrong a lot. And really, the humility is important because failure is all about how you deal with it. You're all going to be wrong at some point. And how you deal with that failure? Do you double down on your mistakes? Do you deny that you made a mistake? Do you learn from your mistake? And to me, that really encompasses why I like it so much because you're forced to grow. You're always forced to be growing as a person, as a colleague, as a client service person, and you're always constantly learning and relearning.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, it's extremely competitive, probably the smartest, most motivated people in the world that you're competing against. And you're also competing against yourself to try and figure out what's going to happen. So that's number one. So your probability of being correct is low, right? I mean, if you're 50-50 or 60-40.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, all types of policy, but mainly fiscal and monetary Also, geopolitical events, and that's probably the least important for us because they're so hard to predict. But definitely fiscal and monetary policy. And I think that that's probably taken on a much bigger role in the last 20 years than it was prior to that 20-year period. The policy now has an outsized impact on markets than it did 20 years ago.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And that can apply to macro data and it can apply to micro data. And that should tell you whether or not an asset is probably going to be appreciating or depreciating. So that's one part of our framework. Second part of our framework is valuation, fundamental work, earnings analysis, predicting earnings, where is the valuation based on kind of where we are in the cycle. And then, of course, policy is a huge impact on how that cycle can be affected.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both, but generally starts with the economic cycle. Where are you in the economic cycle? And then the business cycle effectively, and then understanding that there are also market cycles. And marrying those two is also a big part of our framework. So you have to have some sort of fundamental framework. Mine has always been based on rate of change analysis. So, to me, when people look at data, a lot of times I don't think they look at data the right way. Now, I feel like we educated the street in many ways going back 15, 20 years ago about this rate of change analysis going back to the early 2000s. And now people are kind of on to it. I'm not saying the only person thinking about rate of change, but it has become a much bigger feature. So the rate of change matters way more than the level in every indicator you're looking at.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To me, it's all just about the riddle. You're just trying to solve a giant puzzle. I mean, that's what makes markets so exciting. To me, it's the marrying, quite frankly, of macro and micro. So I have a deep background in micro, mainly in the TMT space. And then I developed this macro affinity starting in really 2009-10 in that role. And so marrying the two to me is the advantage. The way we kind of laid this out and we originally took over coverage of US equity strategy, we said, look, there's four pillars to our strategy. First of all, we're cycle. Analyst, not to be confused with psychoanalysts, but it's kind of related. Understanding cycles is critical.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, so I kind of hit my expiration date. You know what I mean? And so I wouldn't want to be doing that now because I did it. And that's why I always think about my life, which is the next thing I do is going to be something totally different. I don't even know what it's going to be yet. But I mean, I'm not retiring. I'll be working until God helped me out live a long life. And I'll be doing this for a long time.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then I built out that effort over the course of, I don't know, five, six years for every industry. And it was kind of like your team. And we built it from scratch. Now every firm has that role. So we were the original. We're the OG on that. And it was a very cohesive group of people. We were analysts. We were also traders. We were dealing with clients from a sales standpoint. We were making calls. We're working with our research department. We'd even work with capital markets to help them price or think about deals in our sector. So it was a very comprehensive role, but also specialized. That to me had the most fun, but I did it for almost 10 years.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an interesting question. I mean, I would say I had a lot of fun working on the trading desk. I was younger. We had a group of people kind of the same age. You're rowing the boat. It's a tight team of 15 people or so. And that role was essentially, I sort of built what we call institutional sector sales. It's sort of a desk analyst role. We were the first firm to do that. I was a TMT specialist.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I go into a meeting and I'm talking to somebody who really doesn't care at all about next week and they don't even care about this year. They're thinking about five, ten years down the road. It's a completely different conversation. In fact, we end up talking about their business. they made their wealth that's really fascinating to me whereas if I'm going into a typical institutional meeting it's almost like you know washer rinse repeat okay here's what's going on right now here's how we're thinking about it which is valuable but it's a totally different meaning”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pension funds, we have endowments, and so it's sort of managing that all of those different constituents with communication. So that's the challenge. I wouldn't say I like one better than the other, but what I would say is I do find more personal satisfaction in helping the asset owner clients who really need the help. Let's be honest, most of the institutional clients, they're pretty sophisticated and they're looking for an edge. They value our research. They say they value other people's research. They value the conversations, but they don't necessarily need your help as much as, say, a retail client or somebody who is really entrusting their entire net worth to the firm. So it's just different, you know. And when I find challenging and satisfying is that every meeting I do, I almost got to put on a different hat.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, that's also evolved over time. I mean, there are very different constituents. So I would say the challenge of having those roles is that our institutional clients are much shorter term. And Morgan Stanley has all types of different clients. We have institutional clients. We have retail clients.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what I mean? You gotta say I'm wrong, and then you okay, I've got to do something different, and I think my worst mistakes have been when I've been unable to admit that I'm wrong. And so the trading experience helped me to kind of get past that.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it absolutely helps. I mean, because it forces you to be honest about your positioning and it forces you to revisit why am I involved in this call or position and does it still make sense? And that trader instinct forces you to be honest with yourself where I think if you hadn't done that, I probably wouldn't be as open-minded to things changing. And oh, yeah, I could be wrong. It's funny to me. A lot of people are afraid to admit they're wrong. I'm happy to admit that I'm wrong because that's how a traitor closes out of position.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that came later. So I was really investing banking, and then I went into really more of a sales role in the 90s, and then I became more of a prop trader in the 2000s sort of post the tech bubble. And I was involved in trading tech stocks proprietarily helping the desk make money before that became abolished post-GFC. And that was another incredible growing experience. I mean, as you know, trading. Forces you to really look inward. You're basically competing against yourself Your own worst enemy, your own best friend. You know, it's a love hate thing. The P&L is everything. You know, being married to a screen every day to me is not investing, that's trading. And I'm not a trader. I mean, I understand trading. I'm more of somebody who is intermediate term. I'm a cycles person as opposed to a trading person”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just what I said. I mean, they've given me the opportunity to do a lot of different things. I don't think I could have spent 35 years at any firm doing the same job function. It's just I need the variety. And so I would probably say that I've had six or seven careers over that 35 year period. And that's what's kept me interested. It's been exciting. It's been a thrill of a lifetime to be able to do these different types of careers.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, for me, I mean, it was perfect because I grew up very independent. My mom put that on me early. And so Morgan Stanley's kind of the same way. It's your career to manage. Tremendous support internally to make sure that you have what you need, but generally they encourage you to explore your limits. And so that to me has always been a very endearing part of the Morgan Stanley culture. It's served me well. It's challenged me. It's made me kind of better. It's forced me to grow and do different jobs. That to me is the biggest takeaway.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not so fun. I mean, you know, you're learning, but it's an entry-level job and it's not glamorous. You're punching the clock pretty heavy hours. But boy, you're surrounded by some really smart people and you're working on things that are forcing you to grow intellectually. It really challenges your resolve. Do you want to be in this business? Do you want to, because it's constant, as you know. I mean, being in the investment business, being in the financial services business, it's a constant evolution. You have to improve your skills. You have to evolve your skills. And if you don't, you kind of die.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, work hard, play hard, and nothing bad, nothing we shouldn't be doing. And it was great. The 90s still to this day, I mean, it felt, and America was really booming. It wasn't just New York City. I mean, it was almost a coming of age for the entire country. As you know, I mean, the late 90s was sort of, you could say, peak USA in many ways. We can measure that in a lot of different ways. And New York was a big part of that. So it was a lot of fun. It was exciting.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What A lot of fun. A lot of fun. I mean, you know, you work long hours, but you're kind of burning the candle at both ends. That's what you tweet.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it really was a kind of a turbulent sort of emotional thing for me, but I had changed school so many times through my childhood. I lived in Illinois, lived in Texas, and went to a bunch of different schools. So new adventures was not a challenge for me. But yeah, the big city was a big change. I'm a rural guy. I kind of grew up on a farm town in Illinois and in Texas, which is in Dallas, but not really a farm town. But more rural, definitely more Midwestern, southern even. And so, yeah, New York was eye-opening. And”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't actually. I sold it. I finally sold it. All of it, I believe, in the late 90s, so I left a lot on the table. Yeah, yeah. It's still my biggest winner, but I still, right?”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, as 13 years old in 1980, a boy, you can imagine, I picked Nike, worked out pretty well and ended up paying for a good chunk of tuition. And of course, once you have a winner like that, you're kind of in. So I went to school. I didn't think I would be necessarily doing what I'm doing today, but I knew that I was going to be interested in financial markets of some kind. And I think I probably ended up in the right place. It took a long time to kind of get to the right role. But yeah, I mean, I've always had an interest in markets for sure.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So she got me interested looking at stocks at a young age. And of course, I got hooked early because probably to this day my largest percentage winner of all time was the first stock I ever picked when I was 13 years old.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, it was in some way, shape, or form. I mean, you know, my mom was a financial advisor in the early 80s. She was kind of an inspiration with a single parent family household. She was basically making ends meet. And she, over that time, a woman as a broker was an endangered species. It didn't exist at all.”
2024-09-05 · Masters in Business · From Investment Banker to CIO with Mike Wilson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source