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HSBC Holdings rose on Friday after the U.K.-listed, Asia-focused banking giant received upgrades from two brokers.
Barclays lifted its rating on HSBC to overweight from underweight, and increased its price target to 530 pence from 480 pence. Barclays also upgraded Standard Chartered
STAN,
to equal-weight from underweight.
“Having hosted both banks at our Global Financial Services conference, we have greater conviction on an improving outlook: revenue momentum should accelerate, including key Asia Wealth, a primary driver of our above-consensus earnings forecasts at HSBC (we are 15% ahead of 2023e EPS),” Barclays said. “We argue near-term growth concerns and China policy developments are driving weak valuations, limiting downside risk and under-appreciating sizable upside potential.”
RBC Capital Markets lifted HSBC to outperform from sector and nudged its price target up to 460 pence from 450 pence. The RBC analysts argued that the current valuation is at a 40% discount to its historical average, using price to tangible book value. RBC said HSBC has struggled this year due to a combination of worries about Chinese government intervention as well as a rebasing of dividend expectations.
HSBC Holdings
HSBA,
HSBC,
shares rose 2% to 376 pence, to trim year-to-date losses to 0.4%.
The gains for HSBC couldn’t offset weakness from the mining sector among London stocks though as iron ore plunged. Anglo American
AAL,
cut to sell from neutral at UBS, slumped over 4% to lead a retreat in the sector. Since early July, the iron ore price has plunged 45%, and platinum group metals have dropped by 20%, UBS noted.
The FTSE 100
UKX,
slipped 0.1% to 7,021.55 in midday trade.
