Strategist Who Warned Before Rout Sees Anthropic as Bigger Risk

(Bloomberg) -- One of the few Wall Street strategists to turn cautious on stocks ahead of Thursday's selloff warned that a potential Anthropic PBC debut may prove a more decisive event than the US midterms.

HSBC Holdings Plc's Max Kettner cut his rating on stocks from maximum overweight to neutral two weeks ago, arguing that the narrative around tech had turned unfavorable regardless of how companies approached capital spending.

While he sees the artificial intelligence trade as fundamentally intact despite this week's heavy selling, he remains cautious after the vote, questioning how much risk could have cleared when investors had done little to hedge the election in the first place.

"The real risk clearing event is probably the Anthropic IPO in two weeks, if it happens. The best case would probably be you come, but you come with a $1 trillion valuation instead of $1.5 trillion valuation," he said.

Anthropic's planned initial public offering faces various hurdles. Recent selling in AI-related stocks has made the market backdrop less forgiving, while a changing of the guard in Washington also risks shifting expectations for Anthropic's ability to navigate the political landscape.

"You come with a reasonably low valuation, such that in the secondary market you actually start rallying. Or at least not dumping 20-30% in the first week — because that obviously would be horrible."

Kettner made a name for himself in recent years as one of the first to call the current bull run in stocks. But last month he cut back on his bet on stocks for the first time in months. He argued that sharp mood changes among investors warranted a more cautious approach ahead of the US midterms.

"Wednesday was really strange," he told Bloomberg, referring to the initial post-vote rally. "People were asking me, 'Why are you still cautious? Why are you still on the sidelines? What are you doing?'"

For Kettner, the explanations for the rally and then the sharp fall Thursday felt more like narratives being retrofitted to the price action that had genuinely surprised investors. The S&P 500 had its worst day since April 2025, while the Nasdaq 100 and chip index suffered their steepest declines since March 2020.