A portfolio supervisor at Julius Baer has sketched out trades for traders trying to dial down their publicity to U.S. AI as traders cool on the sector. “There’s numerous disruption within the U.S. in the mean time,” Tom Watts informed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Europe” Tuesday. “It is available in three phases how one can diversify away from these AI tech names which were so scorching over the previous few years.” First: diversify inside the U.S. Watts stated Julius Baer has been utilizing an equally-weighted S & P 500 tracker as a “good, low-cost, environment friendly method” to cut back focus threat in mega-cap tech names. “This tracker provides you publicity to different sectors that you just won’t have had in case you’d purchased a market-weighted tracker,” Watts stated. Secondly, Watts stated, traders may also diversify away from the U.S. altogether. “It is not caught on but… however we have had ‘Purchase America’ — and now it is ‘Bye America’.” Right here, Julius Baer outlined a “constructive however balanced” stance on international equities. In its 2026 Market Outlook, the Zurich-headquartered personal banking group stated that, whereas AI stays a efficiency driver, “traders can diversify with defensive healthcare, Swiss equities, Europe’s cyclicals, and Asia-led rising market power.” Turning to geopolitical and macroeconomic themes, Watts noticed how 2026 is ready to be characterised by diverging international insurance policies within the type of “two-speed rate-cutting” amongst international central banks. XAU= YTD mountain Gold spot. The U.S. Federal Reserve is prone to cut back charges additional, with the Financial institution of England chopping faster than many traders count on, Watts stated. He added that the European Central Financial institution, by comparability, “possibly has another reduce” earlier than sustaining charges at their present stage, after which it would start elevating charges within the coming years. On this context, gold continues to be a beautiful play, Watts stated, significantly as a result of renewed uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. He stated Julius Baer continues to have a “first rate place” in gold, noting that there continues to be central financial institution shopping for and geopolitical tensions. RKT-GB YTD mountain Reckitt Benckiser. Zeroing in on single inventory bets amid continued issues over a tech-related sell-off, Watts highlighted fast-moving shopper items names, resembling Procter & Gamble within the U.S. and Reckitt Benckiser within the U.Okay., as staple shares which might be traditionally well-placed to climate bouts of uncertainty and volatility. “These sorts of corporations, staples actually, that have gotten constant earnings, subscription-based shares, deep financial moats as we name them, good administration which have seen all this earlier than. “These sorts of corporations are inclined to do properly. We’ve seen that in lockdown. We noticed it throughout more durable instances.”
