James Gorman, the chairman and chief executive of investment bank Morgan Stanley, said that investors might profit from a recovery in oil prices “if they have the stomach over a two-year period.”

He said the collapse in crude prices in the past year and a half echoes past boom and bust cycles, and will create opportunities to make money.

"Supply and demand eventually rebalance. We've seen this again and again and again," he said to CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The question is if you got the stomach to live through this rebalance."

West Texas Intermediate crude traded in New York has fallen 70 percent to about $28 a barrel after peaking in June 2014. The collapse was attributed to greater supplies from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel, and to slowing demand from China.

The drop in crude was an "absolute shocker," but the global economy still looks pretty good, Gorman told CNBC.

"My screen I have at my desk, there's about 70 stocks that I follow, from energy, financials, consumer, housing, [and] media; every one of them is down, precipitously in three weeks," Gorman said, adding that he does not see a reason for such widespread declines.

Morgan Stanley this week reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. The bank named a new head for its ailing fixed-income trading business, which saw job cuts of 25 percent.

"We're not planning more layoffs right now," Gorman told CNBC. "Morgan Stanley is in great shape."

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