AP Photo/Richard Drew
Trader Peter Tuchman works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, July 8, 2019.
- Morgan Stanley Wealth Management on December 17 released a list of 10 geopolitical risks the market could face in 2020.
- The risks that are "keeping us awake," according to a group of strategists led by Scott Helfstein of Morgan Stanley.
- Here are the top 10 risks, ranked in order of least to most likely to play out next year.
- Read more on Business Insider.
Even as 2019 barrels towards a year-end record, some Wall Street strategists are looking ahead to see what might be in store for investors next year.
On December 17, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management released a list of the top 10 geopolitical risks that they see looming over the market in 2020. The risks are "keeping us awake," wrote a group of analysts led by Scott Helfstein.
The list spans a wide range of geopolitical events that the strategists will be watching in 2020. The report also included Morgan Stanley's past predictions as well as how many came true. In 2019, three forecasts turned out to prove important for markets, the analysts wrote.
Those were escalating trade conflicts weighing on margins and sentiment, lower oil prices fueling the "100 Years" Middle East war, and political regimes in the most important capitalist countries coming under pressure.
Four predictions for 2019 "proved fairly prescient," the analysts wrote. Those were extension of Brexit through 2019, global antiestablishment tensions leading to more civil unrest, and the risk of tighter liquidity pressuring emerging market valuations, according to the note.
There were also three risk items that the analysts conceded were wrong in 2019 and did not affect markets: The European Central Bank did not get a more hawkish chair, there was not a major cyberattack on critical infrastructure, and there was "thankfully, no terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction," according to the note.
"Were were happy to get these three wrong," Helfstein wrote.
Here are the 10 geopolitical risks that could be on the horizon for the market in 2020, according to Morgan Stanley. The risks are ranked in order of least to most likely.