Here's How Much a $1000 Investment in Morgan Stanley Made 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today

How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Morgan Stanley MS ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to MS for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Morgan Stanley's Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Morgan Stanley's main business drivers.

Founded in 1935 and incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware in 1981, Morgan Stanley is the leading financial services holding company headquartered in New York. With 79,610 employees, the company serves a diversified group of clients and customers — including corporations, governments, financial institutions and individuals — through offices across 41 countries.

The company’s business is divided into three segments:

The Institutional Securities ("IS") segment (contributing 42.6% of total net revenues in 2023) includes capital raising; financial advisory services that include advices on mergers and acquisitions (M&As), restructurings, real estate and project finance; corporate lending; sales, trading, financing and market-making activities in equity and fixed income securities and related products, including foreign exchange and commodities; benchmark indices and risk management analytics; and investment activities.

The Wealth Management ("WM") segment (48.5%) provides brokerage and investment advisory services covering various investment alternatives; financial and wealth planning services; annuity and other insurance products; credit and other lending products; cash management services; retirement services; and trust and fiduciary services and engages in fixed income principal trading.

The Investment Management ("IM") segment (8.9%) provides global asset management products and services in equity, fixed income, alternative investments that include hedge funds and funds of funds, and merchant banking including real estate, private equity and infrastructure, to institutional and retail clients through proprietary and third-party distribution channels. The segment also engages in investment.

In 2019, Morgan Stanley acquired Canada-based Solium Capital Inc. and renamed it as Shareworks by Morgan Stanley. In 2020, the company acquired E*Trade Financial. In 2021, it acquired Eaton Vance.

Bottom Line

Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Morgan Stanley, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.

A $1000 investment made in May 2014 would be worth $3,245.98, or a gain of 224.60%, as of May 27, 2024, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 179.12% and gold's return of 77.20% over the same time frame.

Analysts are forecasting more upside for MS too.

Morgan Stanley's new strategic alliance with Mitsubishi UFJ will bolster its presence in Japan and support footprint diversification efforts. Also, initiatives to become less dependent on capital-markets-driven revenue sources, inorganic expansion efforts and high rates will likely aid the top line. Per our estimates, total revenues are expected to witness a CAGR of 4.1% by 2026. Yet, rising costs is likely to hamper profitability. We project total non-interest expenses to record a CAGR of 2.3% by 2026. Its shares have underperformed the industry in the past six months. The ambiguity of the performance of the capital markets is a major woe and will likely hurt the Institutional Securities segment’s prospects. However, resurgence of investment banking (IB) business and the company’s solid pipeline in the business will aid financials. Shares have gained 6.61% over the past four weeks and there have been 8 higher earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2024 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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