The world’s largest wealth manager has turned bearish on stocks, fearing that the latest escalation of the trade fracas between the US and China poses a heightened threat to global markets.

UBS Wealth Management, which overseas $2.5tn for rich clients, has trimmed its core equity recommendation to an “underweight” position for the first time since the height of the eurozone crisis in 2012, on worries that the ongoing trade war and slowing global growth increase the risk of owning stocks.

The move was prompted by Friday’s announcement by Donald Trump, US president, of an increase in previously announced tariffs, wrote Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer for UBS’s wealth management group, in a note distributed to clients late on Sunday. Underweight means that customers should cut exposures in their portfolios that span various classes of assets.