Morgan Stanley upgrades HSBC to 'equal weight'

Morgan Stanley upgraded HSBC to ‘equal weight’ from ‘underweight’ and raised its price target to 645p from 550p.

The broker upgraded the bank’s stock as the revenue outlook has improved on better Asia pacific (APAC) loan growth and higher rates.

“We have had an underweight rating on HSBC as we were concerned around risks to the dividend and what we saw as too optimistic revenue assumptions from consensus given the Asian growth outlook and US rate picture."

After strong capital build in the third quarter, increased optimism around HSBC's APAC loan growth and a sharp increase in US interest rate expectations we are now modelling earnings ahead of consensus for 2016 to 2019 estimates. While we still see better value elsewhere we no longer see material downside risk to the share price from here, said the note.

HSBC’s share price rose 2.99% to 645.60p at 0938 GMT on Tuesday.