Stocks haven’t hit bottom yet, says the analyst who called a ‘rolling recession’ when everyone else saw a boom

Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson spent years insisting a “rolling recession” was hiding in plain sight while Wall Street celebrated what appeared to be a boom. Now he’s back with another contrarian call: half the stock market is already in a bear market, the correction has been grinding for six months, and investors panicking this week arrived late.

In a note published Monday, Wilson — Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist — argued that the dramatic volatility roiling markets recently is not the beginning of a selloff. It’s closer to the end. “This correction is mature in time and price,” he wrote, anchoring the call with a striking data point: 50% of all stocks in the Russell 3000 are now down at least 20% from their 52-week highs, and among S&P 500 members, the figure exceeds 40%.​

The backdrop is important. Wilson spent years arguing, often in isolation, that the economy was much weaker for many companies and consumers than what the headline economic statistics (nominal GDP or employment) suggested. Rather than a single crash, he said, weakness had moved sector by sector — tech first, then consumer goods, then the broader economy — meaning the usual markers of recession, soaring unemployment and plummeting GDP, remained muted while pain mounted underneath. He called it a “rolling recession.” Most of Wall Street thought he was wrong.​

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