New York, Feb 17, 2026, 15:26 EST — Regular session
Morgan Stanley (MS) traded up roughly 0.3% to $171.60 during Tuesday afternoon, with shares swinging from $170.57 to $174.11. About 3.9 million shares changed hands.
U.S. equities ticked up, with the S&P 500 financials component leading sector movers, climbing roughly 1.2%. Still, nerves lingered after the previous week’s AI-driven slump that rattled software and broker stocks, and as Alibaba launched its Qwen 3.5 model on Monday. “The market is looking very short-term here,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder, who described the volatility as theme-chasing by investors. Futures showed traders assigning about a 63% probability to at least a 25-basis-point rate cut at the Fed’s June meeting. 1
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee floated the possibility of “several more” rate cuts in 2026, but only if inflation keeps moving down toward the Fed’s 2% target. Investors are watching for the minutes from the Fed’s Jan. 27-28 meeting, set for release Wednesday. The December PCE report hits Friday. The policy rate’s been stuck at 3.5%-3.75%, while the PCE price index—favored by the Fed for tracking inflation—has hovered near 2.8% from May through November, based on the latest figures. 2
Big banks posted gains, with Goldman Sachs climbing around 1.3%, JPMorgan Chase advancing nearly 1.5%, and Citigroup up close to 2.8%. Bank of America managed a smaller move, edging up by about 0.4%. Morgan Stanley, on the other hand, trailed behind even as the sector attracted buyers.
Funds overseen by Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing have wrapped up the sale of the last 11 communities from the Spring Arbor Senior Living portfolio, unloading them to an S&P 500 buyer for $296 million, according to Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The portfolio in question counts 795 assisted-living and memory-care units, with occupancy topping 90% in recent years. “This investment highlights MSREI’s ability to identify opportunities during periods of market dislocation,” said Will Millam, who heads up Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing U.S. 3
Morgan Stanley Investment Management, which reported $1.9 trillion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, 2025, said its AIP Alternative Lending Group has closed its first asset-based finance securitization tied to consumer personal loans, giving it around $220 million in loan purchase capacity. The securitization, which pools loans into securities for investors, resulted in the issuance of investment-grade notes that received ratings from KBRA, according to the bank. “This transaction reflects our continued progression in structuring durable and innovative capital solutions for investors,” Ken Michlitsch, managing director at the group, said in a statement. 4
Shares dropped 4.8% last week amid fresh concerns over AI-related disruption weighing on financial names, wealth managers among them, Zacks said in a note published by Nasdaq. Morgan Stanley, which oversees one of Wall Street’s largest wealth-management operations, is exposed here—its trading business often reacts quickly to changes in risk appetite. 5
But that backing tends to vanish fast. A hotter-than-expected inflation report or more hawkish signals in the Fed minutes, and suddenly those rate-cut expectations get pushed back — banks often feel the shift almost immediately.
On Feb. 20, the Bureau of Economic Analysis is set to put out its latest GDP figures along with the PCE price index — data drops that could shake up forecasts for growth, inflation, and interest rates. 6
