Time to buy shares of Morgan Stanley, says UBS
Investors should scoop up shares of Morgan Stanley as the investment banking giant proves its resiliency in the face of multiple headwinds, according to UBS. UBS upgraded Morgan Stanley to buy from neutral. It also raised its price target on shares to $196 from $195, implying roughly 17.7% upside from Monday’s close. “Given the recent barrage of headlines hitting the market and bank stocks (Iran conflict, private credit, AI disruption), we think it’s an opportunity for investors to add quality stocks in their portfolios,” analyst Erika Najarian said in a note to clients. The analyst pointed to Morgan Stanley’s history of embracing new technologies as a sign that the stock will be able to navigate disruption risks posed by AI. In 2020, the financial services firm acquired digital brokerage E-Trade for $13 billion. Morgan Stanley also purchased Eaton Vance to deepen its exposure to fixed income and ESG investing, and it embraced crypto services by unveiling a partnership with digital assets infrastructure provider Zerohash in 2025. “Given MS’s history of inorganic and organic growth moves, we think the company is unafraid to disrupt itself,” Najarian said in the note. “MS should be a net winner in the AI evolution within the wealth business.” Morgan Stanley is also likely to gain ground on a series of pushes to deregulate the banking sector, which include changes to the Stress Capital Buffer framework and calculations of risk-based assets for operational risk. MS YTD mountain Morgan Stanley shares have fallen since the beginning of the year. “All of its peers 一 whether through lower/minimum SCBs or potential net new excess capital via recent proposals 一 have benefited from deregulation,” Najarian wrote. “Whereas, MS seemed to have drawn the proverbial ‘short stick…’ implying to us that de-reg has yet to be priced into MS shares vs. peers.” Morgan Stanley may also outperform its medium-term targets, according to the analyst. “We think the market was hoping for raised medium-term targets in the beginning of the year,” Najarian wrote. “That said, we remind investors that MS’s closest peer in the ‘best-in-class’ category, JPM, never resets targets … it simply outperforms them.” UBS’ call goes against consensus on the Street. Of the 25 analysts covering Morgan Stanley, 10 have a buy or strong buy on the stock and 15 have a hold on it, according to LSEG. Shares have fallen 6% in 2026, underperforming the overall market. However, the stock has slightly outperformed peers such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America . JPMorgan and BofA are down more than 8% each for the year.