Broker snap: Investec downgrades HSBC, sees more upside elsewhere

Investec has moved its recommendation on banking giant HSBC from 'buy' to 'hold', saying that there is limited upside left in the stock."Despite recent relative share price underperformance, we would argue that HSBC's shares have held up reasonably well in the context of its broad-based money laundering scandal which broke in July and H1 2012 results which were broadly in line with our sub-consensus estimates, but a disappointment against the wider market's inflated revenue expectations," said analyst Ian Gordon.The shares are trading just 2% below 12-month highs in spite of a "wide assortment of gathering headwinds."Investec said that the first-half results showed a "creditable" cost performance and improving impairments. However, one central issue hasn't changed: "Customer loan growth is anaemic as HSBC struggles to identify sufficient opportunities within risk appetite in its core growth markets of Hong Kong, Rest of Asia-Pacific and the United Kingdom to offset the continuing (accelerated) run-off of legacy or non-strategic assets in North America and elsewhere."The broker reckons that HSBC will miss its 2013 return on equity cost-efficiency ratio targets.Gordon said: "On a 12-month view, we see far more material upside in Barclays, Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group and even RBS, (all 'buys'). As such, given the limited residual upside we see for HSBC, we downgrade back to 'hold'."The target price is reduced from 600p to 590p.By 10:46 on Wednesday, shares were trading 1.74% lower at 559.1p.BC