Analysts at Deutsche Bank maintained Buy rating on the shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) as they believe that the latter has made significant progress on several key initiatives over the last year including selling off legacy assets and enhancing its risk management capabilities. They set a price target of $34 for the stock.
DB analysts state that MS’s management has beefed up its capital ratios and is making gradual progress in fixed income trading. It is maintaining its leadership in investment banking business and is well-placed for a pick-up in activity. The company focuses on achieving $1 billion run rate cost reductions over the next three years and improving fixed income trading results by gaining share and improving profitability. Analysts state that the company is improving wealth management by improving the margin and driving stronger top line growth via new products. On the negative front, analysts state that MS has been affected by the high correlation between capital markets activity and economic growth. They state that its downside risks include weakening macro trends, adverse regulatory changes and unsuccessful fixed income.
On a year-to-date basis, the company’s share performance is -15.03 percent. As compared to Standard & Poor’s 500, MS’s YTD share performance is -17.81 percent.
Morgan Stanley is global leader in financial services, securities and asset management. It has a market capitalization of $35.71 billion, and P/E ratio of 12.77. It has 1544 million outstanding shares.
Shares of Morgan Stanley were down 1.24 percent or 28 cents to trade at $22.23 in the mid-day session.
