How to buy Morgan Stanley stock

Morgan Stanley is a capital markets business based in the US. Morgan Stanley shares (MS) are listed on the NYSE and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Morgan Stanley employs 68,000 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$48.2 billion.

How to buy shares in Morgan Stanley

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Morgan Stanley. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: MS. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Morgan Stanley reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Morgan Stanley, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Morgan Stanley. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

Morgan Stanley share price

Use our graph to track the performance of MS stocks over time.

Morgan Stanley shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2021-04-16.

52-week range	USD$34.8453 - USD$86.64
50-day moving average	USD$80.5865
200-day moving average	USD$67.2034
Wall St. target price	USD$89
PE ratio	12.5108
Dividend yield	USD$1.4 (1.73%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$6.46

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Is it a good time to buy Morgan Stanley stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Morgan Stanley by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Is Morgan Stanley under- or over-valued?

Valuing Morgan Stanley stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Morgan Stanley's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Morgan Stanley's P/E ratio

Morgan Stanley's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 13x. In other words, Morgan Stanley shares trade at around 13x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Morgan Stanley's PEG ratio

Morgan Stanley's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 49.2853. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.

The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Morgan Stanley's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.

Morgan Stanley financials

Revenue TTM	USD$48.2 billion
Operating margin TTM	37.15%
Gross profit TTM	USD$42.8 billion
Return on assets TTM	1.11%
Return on equity TTM	12.03%
Profit margin	22.81%
Book value	$51.133
Market capitalisation	USD$151.2 billion

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Morgan Stanley shares

There are currently 12.3 million Morgan Stanley shares held short by investors – that's known as Morgan Stanley's "short interest". This figure is 51.8% down from 25.5 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Morgan Stanley shares can be evaluated.

Morgan Stanley's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Morgan Stanley's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Morgan Stanley shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Morgan Stanley shares traded daily (recently around 11.4 million). Morgan Stanley's SIR currently stands at 1.08. In other words for every 100,000 Morgan Stanley shares traded daily on the market, roughly 1080 shares are currently held short.

However Morgan Stanley's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Morgan Stanley shares, or, against the total number of tradable Morgan Stanley shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Morgan Stanley's short interest could be expressed as 0.01% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Morgan Stanley shares in existence, roughly 10 shares are currently held short) or 0.0082% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Morgan Stanley shares, roughly 8 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Morgan Stanley.

Find out more about how you can short Morgan Stanley stock.

Morgan Stanley's environmental, social and governance track record

Environmental, social and governance (known as ESG) criteria are a set of three factors used to measure the sustainability and social impact of companies like Morgan Stanley.

When it comes to ESG scores, lower is better, and lower scores are generally associated with lower risk for would-be investors.

Morgan Stanley's total ESG risk score

Total ESG risk: 21.96

Socially conscious investors use ESG scores to screen how an investment aligns with their worldview, and Morgan Stanley's overall score of 21.96 (as at 12/31/2018) is pretty good – landing it in it in the 31st percentile of companies rated in the same sector.

ESG scores are increasingly used to estimate the level of risk a company like Morgan Stanley is exposed to within the areas of "environmental" (carbon footprint, resource use etc.), "social" (health and safety, human rights etc.), and "governance" (anti-corruption, tax transparency etc.).

Morgan Stanley's environmental score

Environmental score: 2.31/100

Morgan Stanley's environmental score of 2.31 puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Morgan Stanley is a leader in its sector terms of its environmental impact, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

Morgan Stanley's social score

Social score: 10.97/100

Morgan Stanley's social score of 10.97 puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. This could suggest that Morgan Stanley is a leader in its sector when it comes to taking good care of its workforce and the communities it impacts.

Morgan Stanley's governance score

Governance score: 7.68/100

Morgan Stanley's governance score puts it squarely in the 2nd percentile of companies rated in the same sector. That could suggest that Morgan Stanley is a leader in its sector when it comes to responsible management and strategy, and exposed to a lower level of risk.

Morgan Stanley's controversy score

Controversy score: 3/5

ESG scores also evaluate any incidences of controversy that a company has been involved in. Morgan Stanley scored a 3 out of 5 for controversy – a middle-of-the-table result reflecting that Morgan Stanley hasn't always managed to keep its nose clean.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) summary

Morgan Stanley was last rated for ESG on: 2019-01-01.

Total ESG score	21.96
Total ESG percentile	31.16
Environmental score	2.31
Environmental score percentile	2
Social score	10.97
Social score percentile	2
Governance score	7.68
Governance score percentile	2
Level of controversy	3

Morgan Stanley share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 21.41% of net profits

Recently Morgan Stanley has paid out, on average, around 21.41% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 1.73% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Morgan Stanley shareholders could enjoy a 1.73% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Morgan Stanley's case, that would currently equate to about $1.4 per share.

While Morgan Stanley's payout ratio might seem low, this can signify that Morgan Stanley is investing more in its future growth.

Morgan Stanley's most recent dividend payout was on 11 February 2021. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 27 January 2021 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Morgan Stanley's shares ever split?

Morgan Stanley's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 26 January 2000. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Morgan Stanley shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Morgan Stanley shares which in turn could have impacted Morgan Stanley's share price.

Morgan Stanley share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Morgan Stanley's shares have ranged in value from as little as $34.8453 up to $86.64. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NYSE average) beta is 1, while Morgan Stanley's is 1.5565. This would suggest that Morgan Stanley's shares are more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent, relatively-speaking, a higher risk (but potentially also market-beating returns).

Morgan Stanley overview

Morgan Stanley, a financial holding company, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company operates through Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. The Institutional Securities segment offers capital raising and financial advisory services, including services related to the underwriting of debt, equity, and other securities, as well as advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, real estate, and project finance. This segment also provides sales and trading services, such as sales, financing, prime brokerage, and market-making services in equity and fixed income products consisting of foreign exchange and commodities; corporate and commercial real estate loans, which provides secured lending facilities and financing for sales and trading customers, as well as asset-backed and mortgage lending; and wealth management services, investment, and research services. The Wealth Management segment offers various financial services and solutions covering brokerage and investment advisory services; financial and wealth planning services; stock plan administration services; annuity and insurance products; securities-based lending, residential real estate loans, and other lending products; and banking and retirement plan services to individual investors and small to medium-sized businesses and institutions. The Investment Management segment provides various investment strategies and products comprising equity, fixed income, liquidity, and alternative/other products to benefit/defined contribution plans, foundations, endowments, government entities, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and third-party fund sponsors and corporations through institutional and intermediary channels. The company was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Morgan Stanley is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 20.524% of Morgan Stanley shares are held by insiders and 65.732% by institutions.

• How many people work for Morgan Stanley?

  Latest data suggests 68,000 work at Morgan Stanley.

• When does the fiscal year end for Morgan Stanley?

  Morgan Stanley's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Morgan Stanley based?

  Morgan Stanley's address is: 1585 Broadway, New York, NY, United States, 10036

• What is Morgan Stanley's ISIN number?

  Morgan Stanley's international securities identification number is: US6174464486

• What is Morgan Stanley's CUSIP number?

  Morgan Stanley's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 24240V101