Amundi says it will cut exposure to US over coming year

DCM Editorial Summary: This story has been independently rewritten and summarised for DCM readers to highlight key developments relevant to the region. Original reporting by Irish Times, click this post to read the original article.

Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi is reducing its exposure to US dollar assets and turning to European and emerging markets, its chief executive has said.

Valerie Baudson, whose firm has €2.4 trillion of assets under management, said Amundi would advise clients to shift away from the greenback over the coming year, warning that if US economic policy remains unchanged, “we will go on seeing a [weakening] of the dollar”.

“Amundi has been diversifying a lot and has been advising [clients] to diversify a lot … over the last 12-15 months, and is going on advising its clients to diversify their positions for the year to come,” Baudson said in an interview.

Amundi is the latest big investor to say it is looking to cut or hedge its exposure to US assets amid concerns about Donald Trump’s volatile economic policies. The dollar has weakened sharply since the president’s “liberation day” tariff shock last April, a fall given new impetus this year by Trump’s threats against European allies over Greenland and worries about the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Baudson said international investors had initially protected themselves against the fall of the dollar over the past year by buying gold, explaining much of the spectacular rise in the price of bullion during that period.

“What we saw after was a will to diversify from US assets, in order to diversify from the dollar, which was … overinvested worldwide,” she added.

Such moves had driven money into European and emerging-market assets, both in fixed income and equities.

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Last year, emerging market stocks had their best year since 2017, driven largely by dollar weakness, with gains picking up strongly at the start of 2026.

Amundi’s investments have also become more diversified in terms of geography, sector and company size, the firm added.

Baudson’s comments came after the sell-off in the dollar pushed it to its lowest level in four years at the end of January, falling more than 10 per cent in 12 months against a basket of other major currencies. Gold soared to a record of more than $5,500 (€4,452) a troy ounce in late January, having almost doubled in price over the same period.

The dollar, gold and other assets have since swung sharply in a bout of volatility following Trump’s selection of Kevin Warsh as his nominee to chair the Fed.

Baudson said that “if there is no change in the economic trajectory … we might see gold going on [up]”.

She was speaking as Amundi posted record assets under management as of the end of December, fuelled by record net inflows of €88bn last year, and as it announced a €500mn share buyback programme.

Amundi’s calls for a move away from US assets echo some other big asset managers, including US bond giant Pimco, which last month said Trump’s “unpredictable” policies were prompting a “multiyear period of some diversification away from US assets”.

Natasha Brook-Walters, head of the $70 billion multi-asset strategies team at Wellington Management, said she was “expressing … concerns about the dollar” by buying other currencies such as euros and Australian dollars. “We like emerging markets and increased our [long] positions at the beginning of this year,” she added.

Becky Qin, a fund manager at Fidelity International, said she had “meaningfully reduced” exposure to the dollar across the $7 billion of assets she oversees, adding that she was “still expecting weakness” in the greenback. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026