NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 29, 2026--
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management today announced the results of its quarterly retail investor pulse survey:
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260128183457/en/
“As the year kicks off with a choppy market and continuing uncertain geopolitics, it’s encouraging to see investors stick to their investment strategies and play the long game,” said Chris Larkin, Managing Director, Head of Trading and Investing, E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. “It’s important for investors to remember that the market doesn’t always go up and swings are normal. While they navigate potential bumps ahead, a disciplined investing approach will help them stay focused on their long-term goals.”
The survey explored investor views on sector opportunities for the first quarter of 2026:
About the Survey
This wave of the survey was conducted from January 6 to January 26 of 2026 among an online US sample of 978 self-directed investors, investors who fully delegate investment account management to financial professionals, and investors who utilize both. The survey has a margin of error of ±3.20 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. It was fielded and administered by Dynata. The panel is broken into three investable assets: less than $500k, between $500k to $1 million, and over $1 million. The panel is 60% male and 40% female and self-select as having moderate+ investing experience, with an even distribution across geographic regions, and age bands.
About Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, a global leader, provides access to a wide range of products and services to individuals, businesses and institutions, including brokerage and investment advisory services, financial and wealth planning, cash management and lending products and services, annuities and insurance, retirement and trust services.
About Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services. With offices in 42 countries, the Firm’s employees serve clients worldwide including corporations, governments, institutions and individuals. For further information about Morgan Stanley, please visit www.morganstanley.com.
This has been prepared for informational purposes only and is not a solicitation of any offer to buy or sell any security or other financial instrument, or to participate in any trading strategy. This material does not provide individually tailored investment advice. It has been prepared without regard to the individual financial circumstances and objectives of persons who receive it. Morgan Stanley recommends that investors independently evaluate particular investments and strategies and encourages investors to seek the advice of a Financial Advisor.
Morgan Stanley Portfolio Solutions are portfolios available in our Select UMA platform under either Firm Discretionary UMA or Managed Advisory Portfolio Solutions. Please see the Select UMA ADV at www.morganstanley.com/ADV
Past performance is not a guarantee or indicative of future performance. Historical data shown represents past performance and does not guarantee comparable future results.
This material contains forward-looking statements and there can be no guarantee that they will come to pass.
Diversification and asset allocation do not guarantee a profit or protect against loss in a declining financial market.
This material should not be viewed as investment advice or recommendations with respect to asset allocation or any particular investment.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management is the trade name of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, a registered broker-dealer in the United States.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC and Dynata are not affiliates.
© 2026 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC.
Referenced Data
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Pulse Survey Reveals Continued Bullishness Amid Market Volatility
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is expected Thursday to list Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group and widen sanctions on the country over Tehran’s deadly crackdown on nationwide protests, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as it faced U.S. threats to potentially launch a military strike against it.
U.S. forces have moved the USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers into the Mideast that can be used to launch attacks from the sea. It remains unclear whether President Donald Trump will use force against Iran, after he threatened military action in response to the killing of peaceful demonstrators and over possible mass executions. At least 6,373 people have been killed in Iran's protests, activists said.
For its part, Iran has said it could launch a pre-emptive strike or broadly target the Mideast, including American military bases in the region and Israel. Iran issued a warning to ships at sea Thursday that it planned to run a drill next week that would include live firing in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting traffic through a waterway that sees 20% of all the world's oil pass through it.
The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, told journalists Thursday it was “likely” fresh sanctions would be put in place on the Revolutionary Guard, which has played a key role in suppressing the demonstrations.
“This will put them on the same footing with al-Qaida, Hamas, Daesh,” Kallas said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. “If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as a terrorist.”
France's foreign minister said the sanctions will target “those responsible for this repression," including members of the Revolutionary Guard as well as the government, the judiciary, police and officials responsible for enabling the internet blackout.
“More than 20 individuals and entities will have their assets frozen and will be denied access to European territory,” said French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot before the meeting in Brussels.
If approved, the sanctions by the EU, which the bloc's member states have long discussed, would put fresh pressure on Iran as its economy already struggles under the weight of multiple international sanctions from countries including the U.S. and Britain. The Guard holds vast business interest across Iran, and sanctions could see any of its assets in Europe seized.
Iran's rial currency fell to a record low of 1.6 million to $1 on Thursday. Economic woes had sparked the protests that broadened into challenging the theocracy before the crackdown.
Iran had no immediate comment, but it has been criticizing Europe in recent days as it considered the move, which follows the U.S. sanctioning the Guard in 2019.
By EU law, sanctions require unanimity across the bloc’s 27 nations. That's at times hindered Brussels’ ability to take quick action, such as responding to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
France had objected to listing the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization over fears it would endanger French citizens detained in Iran, as well as diplomatic missions, which provide some of the few communication channels between the Islamic Republic and Europe and its allies. However, the office of President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday signaled Paris backed the decision.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Thursday before the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels that France supports more sanctions in Iran and the listing “because there can be no impunity for the crimes committed.”
“In Iran, the unbearable repression that has engulfed the peaceful revolt of the Iranian people cannot go unanswered,” he said.
Kristina Kausch, a deputy director at the German Marshall Fund, said the listing would be “a symbolic act” showing that for the EU “the dialogue path hasn’t led anywhere and now it’s about isolation and containment as a priority.”
“The designation of a state military arm, of an official pillar of the Iranian state as a terrorist organization is one step short of cutting diplomatic ties," she said. "But they haven’t cut diplomatic times and they won’t.”
The Guard was born from Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as a force meant to protect its Shiite cleric-overseen government and later enshrined in its constitution. It operated in parallel to the country’s regular armed forces, growing in prominence and power during a long and ruinous war with Iraq in the 1980s. Though it faced possible disbandment after the war, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei granted it powers to expand into private enterprise, allowing it to thrive.
The Guard's Basij force likely was key in putting down the demonstrations, starting in earnest from Jan. 8, when authorities cut off the internet and international telephone calls for the nation of 85 million people. Videos that have emerged from Iran via Starlink satellite dishes and other means show men likely belonging to its forces shooting and beating protesters.
Sanctioning the Guard, however, would be complicated. Iranian men once reaching the age of 18 are required to do up to two years of military service, and many find themselves conscripted into the Guard despite their own politics.
A notice to mariners sent by VHF radio from Iran on Thursday warned that it planned to conduct “naval shooting” in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday and Monday. The Associated Press saw a copy of the message, which was initially reported by the firm EOS Risk Group. Two Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to talk to journalists, also confirmed the warning had been sent.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the drill. The hard-line Keyhan newspaper earlier Thursday raised the specter of Tehran attempting to militarily close the strait.
“Today, Iran and its allies have their finger on a trigger that, at the first enemy mistake, will sever the world’s energy artery in the Strait of Hormuz and bury the hollow prestige of billion-dollar Yankee warships in the depths of the Persian Gulf,” the newspaper said.
Such a move likely would see U.S. military intervention. American military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the warning.
On Wednesday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said the violence in Iran has killed at least 6,373 people in recent weeks, with many more feared dead. Its count included at least 5,993 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 113 children and 53 civilians who weren’t demonstrating. More than 42,450 have been arrested, it added.
The group verifies each death and arrest with a network of activists on the ground, and has been accurate in multiple rounds of previous unrest in Iran. The communication cutoff imposed by Iranian authorities have slowed the full scale of the crackdown from being revealed, and The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll.
Iran’s government as of Jan. 21 put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces and labeled the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.
That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
FILE- A currency exchange bureau worker counts U.S. dollars at Ferdowsi square, Tehran's go-to venue for foreign currency exchange, in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
This handout image from the U.S. Navy shows an EA-18G Growler landing on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 23, 2026. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy via AP)
This handout photograph from the U.S. Navy shows sailors taxiing an F/A-18E Super Hornet on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 25, 2026. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Shepard Fosdyke-Jackson/U.S. Navy via AP)
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks with the media as she arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
