MORGAN STANLEY
For the period ended Dec 31, 2025. Filed Feb 19, 2026.
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FY2025 · Filed Feb 19, 2026
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Market Risk
Market risk refers to the risk that a change in the level of one or more market prices, rates, spreads, indices, volatilities, correlations or other market factors, such as market liquidity, will result in losses for a position or portfolio. Generally, we incur market risk as a result of trading, investing and client facilitation activities, principally within the Institutional Securities business segment where the substantial majority of our VaR for market risk exposures is generated. In addition, we incur non-trading market risk, principally within the Wealth Management and Investment Management business segments. The Wealth Management business segment primarily incurs non-trading market risk (including interest rate risk) from lending and deposit-taking activities. The Investment Management business segment primarily incurs non-trading market risk from capital investments in its funds.
Market risk also includes non-trading interest rate risk. Non-trading interest rate risk in the banking book (amounts classified for regulatory capital purposes under the banking book regime) refers to the exposure that a change in interest rates will result in prospective earnings and fair value changes for assets and liabilities in the banking book.
Sound market risk management is an integral part of our culture. The various business units and trading desks are responsible for ensuring that market risk exposures are well-managed and prudent. The Firm’s control functions help ensure that these risks are measured and closely monitored and are made transparent to senior management. The Market Risk Department is responsible for ensuring the transparency of material market risks, monitoring compliance with established limits and escalating risk concentrations to appropriate senior management.
To execute these responsibilities, the Market Risk Department monitors our risk against limits on aggregate risk exposures, performs a variety of risk analyses, routinely reports risk summaries, and maintains our VaR and scenario analysis systems. Market risk is also monitored through various measures: by use of statistics (including VaR and related analytical measures), by measures of position size and sensitivity, and through routine stress testing, which measures the impact on the value of existing portfolios of specified
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changes in market factors and scenarios designed by the Market Risk Department in collaboration with the business units. The material risks identified by these processes are summarized in reports produced by the Market Risk Department that are circulated to and discussed with senior management, the FRC, the BRC and the Board.
Trading Risks
Primary Market Risk Exposures and Market Risk Management
We have exposures to a wide range of risks related to interest rates and credit spreads, equity prices, foreign exchange rates and commodity prices as well as the associated implied volatilities, correlations and spreads of the global markets in which we conduct our trading activities.
We are exposed to interest rate and credit spread risk as a result of our market-making activities and other trading in interest rate-sensitive financial instruments (i.e., risk arising from changes in the level or implied volatility of interest rates, the timing of mortgage prepayments, the shape of the yield curve and/or credit spreads). The activities from which those exposures arise and the markets in which we are active include, but are not limited to: derivatives, corporate and government debt across both developed and emerging markets and asset-backed debt, including mortgage-related securities.
We are exposed to equity price, correlation and implied volatility risk as a result of making markets in equity securities and derivatives and maintaining other positions, including positions in non-public entities. Positions in non-public entities may include, but are not limited to, exposures to private equity, venture capital, private partnerships, real estate funds and other funds. Such positions are less liquid, have longer investment horizons and are more difficult to hedge than listed equities.
We are exposed to foreign exchange rate, correlation and implied volatility risk as a result of making markets in foreign currencies and foreign currency derivatives, from maintaining foreign exchange positions and from holding non-U.S. dollar-denominated financial instruments.
We are exposed to commodity price and implied volatility risk as a result of market-making activities in commodity products related primarily to electricity, natural gas, oil and precious metals. Commodity exposures are subject to periods of high price volatility as a result of changes in supply and demand. These changes can be caused by weather conditions, physical production and transportation, or geopolitical and other events that affect the available supply and level of demand for these commodities.
We manage our trading positions by employing a variety of risk-mitigation strategies. These strategies include diversification of risk exposures and hedging. Hedging activities consist of the purchase or sale of positions in related
securities and financial instruments, including a variety of derivative products (e.g., futures, forwards, swaps and options). Hedging activities may not always provide effective mitigation against trading losses due to differences in the terms, specific characteristics or other basis risks that may exist between the hedge instrument and the risk exposure that is being hedged.
We manage the market risk associated with our trading activities on a Firmwide basis, on a worldwide trading division level and on an individual product basis. We manage and monitor our market risk exposures in such a way as to maintain a portfolio that we believe is well diversified in the aggregate with respect to market risk factors and that reflects our aggregate risk tolerance as established by our senior management.
Aggregate market risk limits have been approved for the Firm across all divisions worldwide. Additional market risk limits are assigned to trading desks and, as appropriate, products and regions. Trading division risk managers, desk risk managers, traders and the Market Risk Department monitor market risk measures against limits in accordance with policies set by our senior management.
Value-at-Risk
The statistical technique known as VaR is one of the tools we use to measure, monitor and review the market risk exposures of our trading portfolios. The Market Risk Department calculates and distributes daily VaR-based risk measures to various levels of management.
We estimate VaR using a model based on a one-year equal-weighted historical simulation for general market risk factors and name-specific risk in corporate equities and related derivatives, and Monte Carlo simulation for name-specific risk in bonds, loans and related derivatives. The model constructs a distribution of hypothetical daily changes in the value of trading portfolios based on historical observation of daily changes in key market indices or other market risk factors, and information on the sensitivity of the portfolio values to these market risk factor changes.
VaR for risk management purposes (“Management VaR”) is computed at a 95% level of confidence over a one-day time horizon, which is a useful indicator of possible trading losses resulting from adverse daily market moves. The 95%/one-day VaR corresponds to the unrealized loss in portfolio value that, based on historically observed market risk factor movements, would have been exceeded with a frequency of 5%, or five times in every 100 trading days, if the portfolio were held constant for one day.
Our VaR model generally takes into account linear and non-linear exposures to equity and commodity price risk, interest rate risk, credit spread risk and foreign exchange rates. The model also takes into account linear exposures to implied volatility risks for all asset classes and non-linear exposures to implied volatility risks for equity, commodity and foreign
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exchange referenced products. The VaR model also captures certain implied correlation risks associated with portfolio credit derivatives, as well as certain basis risks (e.g., corporate debt and related credit derivatives).
We use VaR as one of a range of risk management tools. Among their benefits, VaR models permit estimation of a portfolio’s aggregate market risk exposure, incorporating a range of varied market risks and portfolio assets. One key element of the VaR model is that it reflects risk reduction due to portfolio diversification or hedging activities. However, VaR has various limitations, which include, but are not limited to: use of historical changes in market risk factors, which may not be accurate predictors of future market conditions and may not fully incorporate the risk of extreme market events that are outsized relative to observed historical market behavior or reflect the historical distribution of results beyond the 95% confidence interval; and reporting of losses in a single day, which does not reflect the risk of positions that cannot be liquidated or hedged in one day. A small proportion of market risk generated by trading positions is not included in VaR.
The modeling of the risk characteristics of some positions relies on approximations that, under certain circumstances, could produce significantly different results from those produced using more precise measures. VaR is most appropriate as a risk measure for trading positions in liquid financial markets and will understate the risk associated with severe events, such as periods of extreme illiquidity. We are aware of these and other limitations and, therefore, use VaR as only one component in our risk management oversight process. This process also incorporates stress testing and scenario analyses and extensive risk monitoring, analysis and control at the trading desk, division and Firm levels.
We update our VaR model in response to changes in the composition of trading portfolios and to improvements in modeling techniques and systems capabilities. We are committed to continuous review and enhancement of VaR methodologies and assumptions in order to capture evolving risks associated with changes in market structure and dynamics. As part of our regular process improvements, additional systematic and name-specific risk factors may be added to improve the VaR model’s ability to more accurately estimate risks to specific asset classes or industry sectors.
Since the reported VaR statistics are estimates based on historical data, VaR should not be viewed as predictive of our future revenues or financial performance or of our ability to monitor and manage risk. There can be no assurance that our actual losses on a particular day will not exceed the VaR amounts indicated in the following tables or that such losses will not occur more than five times in 100 trading days for a 95%/one-day VaR. VaR does not predict the magnitude of losses that, should they occur, may be significantly greater than the VaR amount.
VaR statistics are not readily comparable across firms because of differences in the firms’ portfolios, modeling assumptions and methodologies. These differences can result in materially different VaR estimates across firms for similar portfolios. The impact of such differences varies depending on the factor history assumptions, the frequency with which the factor history is updated and the confidence level. As a result, VaR statistics are more useful when interpreted as indicators of trends in a firm’s risk profile rather than as an absolute measure of risk to be compared across firms.
Our regulators have approved the same VaR model we use for risk management purposes for use in regulatory calculations.
The portfolio of positions used for Management VaR differs from that used for Regulatory VaR. Management VaR contains certain positions that are excluded from Regulatory VaR.
95%/One-Day Management VaR
| 2025 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $ in millions · PeriodEnd · Average · High1 · Low1 | |||||
| Interest rate and credit spread | $27 | $30 | $43 | $20 | |
| Equity price | 27 | 30 | 44 | 17 | |
| Foreign exchange rate | 7 | 12 | 22 | 6 | |
| Commodity price | 13 | 16 | 27 | 11 | |
| Less: Diversification benefit2 | (36) | (39) | N/A | N/A | |
| Primary Risk Categories | $38 | $49 | $63 | $34 | |
| Credit Portfolio | 14 | 18 | 23 | 13 | |
| Less: Diversification benefit2 | (8) | (15) | N/A | N/A | |
| Total Management VaR | $44 | $52 | $64 | $38 | |
| 2024 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $ in millions · PeriodEnd · Average · High1 · Low1 | |||||
| Interest rate and credit spread | $23 | $31 | $52 | $19 | |
| Equity price | 21 | 23 | 39 | 17 | |
| Foreign exchange rate | 10 | 10 | 15 | 6 | |
| Commodity price | 18 | 15 | 23 | 10 | |
| Less: Diversification benefit2 | (37) | (37) | N/A | N/A | |
| Primary Risk Categories | $35 | $42 | $59 | $32 | |
| Credit Portfolio | 20 | 24 | 26 | 20 | |
| Less: Diversification benefit2 | (16) | (17) | N/A | N/A | |
| Total Management VaR | $39 | $49 | $66 | $39 | |
The high and low VaR values for the Total Management VaR and each of the component VaRs might have occurred on different days during the quarter, and, therefore, the diversification benefit is not an applicable measure.
Diversification benefit equals the difference between the total VaR and the sum of the component VaRs. This benefit arises because the simulated one-day losses for each of the components occur on different days. Similar diversification benefits are also taken into account within each component.
Average Total Management VaR and average Management VaR for the Primary Risk Categories increased from 2024, primarily driven by increased exposure in the equity price category.
Distribution of VaR Statistics and Net Revenues
We evaluate the reasonableness of our VaR model by comparing the potential declines in portfolio values generated by the model with corresponding actual trading results for the Firm, as well as individual business units. For days where
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losses exceed the VaR statistic, we examine the drivers of trading losses to evaluate the VaR model’s accuracy. There were six trading loss days in 2025, none of which exceeded 95% Total Management VaR, compared to 11 trading loss days in 2024, none of which exceeded 95% Total Management VaR.
Daily 95%/One-Day Total Management VaR for 2025
Daily Net Trading Revenues for 2025
Daily net trading revenues include profits and losses from Interest rate and credit spread, Equity price, Foreign exchange rate, Commodity price, and Credit portfolio positions and intraday trading activities for our trading businesses. Certain items such as fees, commissions, net interest income and counterparty default risk are excluded from daily net trading revenues and the VaR model. Revenues required for Regulatory VaR backtesting further exclude intraday trading.
Non-Trading Risks
We believe that sensitivity analysis is an appropriate representation of our non-trading risks. The following sensitivity analyses cover substantially all of the non-trading market risk in our portfolio.
Credit Spread Risk Sensitivity 1
| $ in millions | AtDecember 31,2025 | AtDecember 31,2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Derivatives | $6 | $6 |
| Borrowings carried at fair value | 59 | 49 |
- Amounts represent the potential gain for each 1 bps widening of our credit spread.
The Wealth Management business segment reflects a substantial portion of our non-trading interest rate risk. Net interest income in the Wealth Management business segment primarily consists of interest income earned on non-trading assets held, including loans and investment securities, as well as margin and other lending on non-bank entities and interest expense incurred on non-trading liabilities, primarily deposits.
Wealth Management Net Interest Income Sensitivity Analysis
| $ in millions | AtDecember 31,2025 | AtDecember 31,2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Basis point change | ||
| +200 | $410 | $699 |
| +100 | 209 | 350 |
| -100 | (244) | (371) |
| -200 | (542) | (803) |
The previous table presents an analysis of selected instantaneous upward and downward parallel interest rate shocks (subject to a floor of zero percent in the downward scenario) on net interest income over the next 12 months for our Wealth Management business segment. These shocks are applied to our 12-month forecast for our Wealth Management business segment, which incorporates market expectations of interest rates and our forecasted balance sheet and business activity. The forecast includes modeled prepayment behavior, reinvestment of net cash flows from maturing assets and liabilities, and deposit pricing sensitivity to interest rates. These key assumptions are updated periodically based on historical data and future expectations.
We do not manage to any single rate scenario but rather manage net interest income in our Wealth Management business segment across a range of possible outcomes, including non-parallel rate change scenarios. The sensitivity analysis assumes that we take no action in response to these scenarios, assumes there are no changes in other macroeconomic variables normally correlated with changes in interest rates and includes subjective assumptions regarding customer and market re-pricing behavior and other factors.
Our Wealth Management business segment balance sheet is asset sensitive, given assets reprice faster than liabilities, resulting in higher net interest income in higher interest rate
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scenarios and lower net interest income in lower interest rate scenarios. The level of interest rates may impact the amount of deposits held at the Firm, given competition for deposits from other institutions and alternative cash-equivalent products available to depositors. Further, the level of interest rates could also impact client demand for loans. Net interest income sensitivity to interest rates at December 31, 2025 decreased from December 31, 2024, primarily driven by the effects of changes in the balance sheet mix.
Investments Sensitivity, Including Related Carried Interest
| Loss from 10% Decline | ||
|---|---|---|
| $ in millions | AtDecember 31,2025 | AtDecember 31,2024 |
| Investments related to Investment Management activities | $629 | $571 |
| Other investments: | ||
| MUMSS | 129 | 122 |
| Other Firm investments | 493 | 463 |
We have exposure to public and private companies through direct investments, as well as through funds that invest in these assets. These investments are predominantly equity positions with long investment horizons, a portion of which is for business facilitation purposes. The market risk related to these investments is measured by estimating the potential reduction in net revenues associated with a reasonably possible 10% decline in investment values and related impact on performance-based income, as applicable. The measures reflected in the table above do not reflect the effect of any economic hedges or diversification that may reduce the risk of loss.
Asset Management Revenue Sensitivity
Certain asset management revenues in the Wealth Management and Investment Management business segments are derived from management fees, which are based on fee-based client assets in Wealth Management or AUM in Investment Management (together, “client holdings”). The assets underlying client holdings are primarily composed of equity, fixed income and alternative investments and are sensitive to changes in related markets. These revenues depend on multiple factors including, but not limited to, the level and duration of a market increase or decline, price volatility, the geographic and industry mix of client assets, and client behavior such as the rate and magnitude of client investments and redemptions. Therefore, overall revenues may not correlate completely with changes in the related markets.
The text of this filing, as the company filed it with the SEC, without its images or exhibits. This is not investment advice.