Investing.com -- HSBC’s Max Kettner downgraded U.S. equities to underweight on Tuesday, citing a sharp downturn in economic data and persistent uncertainty surrounding trade policy and tariffs.
The downgrade comes not long after the bank lowered its rating for U.S. stocks to Neutral. On March 10, the firm highlighted factors such as tariffs and President Donald Trump’s changing view on NATO allies, which increased market volatility.
The bank now holds an underweight stance on U.S. stocks, investment-grade (IG) credit, and high-yield (HY) credit, while maintaining an overweight (OW) position in gold, emerging market (EM) equities, and eurozone stocks.
"Perhaps the most crucial change in the past two months from a macro and market perspective is the sharp U-turn in U.S. activity data," HSBC wrote.
The bank believes it is “farfetched” to dismiss recent leading and price indicators as mere outliers, warning that continued weakness in the data could spill over into hard economic metrics.
With an April 2 deadline looming on trade policy decisions, HSBC expects tariff-related uncertainty to persist well beyond that date.
The firm cautions that prolonged policy noise could further deteriorate economic sentiment, leading to even weaker U.S. data.
Despite market participants discussing “when to buy the dip” rather than questioning how severe the slowdown could become, HSBC sees further downside risk.
The firm notes that while sentiment and positioning indicators are sending a medium buy signal, momentum signals remain only moderately short, meaning additional position unwinding is possible.
Given the concerns, HSBC is shifting allocations away from U.S. assets. The bank prefers European government bonds (EGBs) over U.S. Treasuries (USTs) and remains heavily overweight gold, which it sees benefiting from stagflationary and recessionary fears.