Why One Strategist Says the Market Is Moving on Trading, Not News
HSBC's chief multi-asset strategist, Max Kettner, says recent market stress is mainly technical. He said so in a Bloomberg video published October 19, 2026. "It is an incredibly technically-driven market," he said.
In this sense, "technical" means prices are moving because of how investors are positioned and how trades are flowing. It does not mean companies are suddenly earning less or that the economy's outlook has changed.
Think of a crowded theater. If everyone rushes for the same door, people get hurt even though the show itself has not changed.
The difference matters. If the stress comes from who owns what and who has to sell, prices can overshoot in both directions, then recover when the selling ends. If it comes from lower profits, the damage tends to last longer. Kettner's view points to the first kind. It does not tell an investor how long the drop will last.
A day later, Kettner appeared on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." The segment, titled "HSBC's Kettner on the latest market action" and dated October 20, covered recent price moves and what could spark a rebound.
His October comments are the latest in a string of public calls in 2026. In February, Bloomberg reported that he thought investors were too focused on artificial intelligence. He said they should look instead to a "textbook" cyclical recovery, meaning one tied to the normal rise and fall of the economy.
In June, he argued that US exceptionalism, the idea that American investments keep beating the rest of the world, was nearing its expiration date. He suggested investors might want to be "perhaps really leaning a bit more into that European story." By July, Bloomberg reported he saw hyperscalers back in favor amid a melt-up. Hyperscalers are the big cloud and AI infrastructure companies, and a melt-up is a sharp rise in prices.
Taken together, the calls show a shift. First came a move away from AI toward companies whose profits follow the economy. Then came Europe, and then a return to the hyperscalers. The October comment says trading seems to be doing more of the work than the news.
The broader context here is that a strategist's string of calls is not proof of where prices will go. Anyone with money in these companies or regions should treat a drop driven by trading differently from one driven by weaker business results. The recovery can look very different.
Kettner holds the CFA designation, a professional investment credential. He is chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC, so he looks at how money is split across asset types, not one sector. That breadth matters. His view is about the whole market's machinery, not one stock or one region.
For savers and borrowers, the practical point is simpler. Markets moving on trading can swing fast in both directions, even when the economy is heading the same way. That is when a scary headline and a real loss of value are easiest to mix up.
The question an expert would ask is which signs would show the stress has moved from trading into company profits or credit, meaning loans and borrowing.
