Nov 6 – HSBC strategist Max Kettner had already turned cautious before Thursday's US stock market plunge, making him one of the few Wall Street strategists to adjust his stance ahead of time. Two weeks ago, he cut equities from their highest overweight rating to neutral. He believes a potential Anthropic initial public offering (IPO) could have a more far-reaching impact than the US midterm elections. Regardless of how tech companies structure their capital expenditure, the broader market narrative around the tech sector has turned unfavorable. Despite this week's sharp selloff in tech stocks, he believes the fundamental logic behind the AI trade remains intact. Still, he remains cautious after the midterm elections and questions how much market risk the elections have actually removed, given that investors had done almost no hedging against election risk beforehand. He said the event that could truly remove market risk might be Anthropic's IPO two weeks from now (if it proceeds as scheduled), and the ideal scenario would be for the IPO to go ahead as planned.