[Morgan Stanley Co-President: Corporate mergers and acquisitions and new stock issuance are on hold] Morgan Stanley Co-President Dan Simkowitz said that as clients evaluate Trump's policy changes, corporate mergers and acquisitions and new stock issuance transactions are "definitely on hold." On March 18, Simkowitz said at the Morgan Stanley European Financial Conference, "Due to some policy uncertainty, the threshold for transactions is high. However, they are only suspended, not canceled." He added that the scale of fundraising in the credit market has remained near record levels in the first two months of this year. A few weeks after Trump won the election, executives of major banks took turns looking forward to the resurgence of "animal spirits" in the market and predicting a comeback in trading activities. So far, this goal has largely failed to be fulfilled, with the number of new transactions announced this year lower than in early 2024.
