Hong Kong-listed shares in the HSBC Holdings (0005) plunged on Monday to HK$29.60 (US$3.81), the lowest in 25 years, after being sandwiched between sanctions from China and the United States. Market experts expressed pessimism, saying the blue-chip is not worth for long-term investment.

The global bank is facing several strong headwinds, including growing political and financial tensions between China and the U.S., and leaked reports over allegedly illicit funds the bank involved.

On Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it had launched an “unreliable entity list” to restrict foreign entities, a move seen as retaliation for Washington’s clampdown on Chinese companies such as telecommunication giant Huawei.

HSBC will be one of the possible candidates for the list, said Qingqing Chen, principal reporter of Beijing’s mouthpiece Global Times.

HSBC and Standard Chartered (2888) are exploring contingency plans to cope with potentially extreme measures from the Trump administration, sources told the Daily Telegraph, which include being effectively cut off from the U.S. financial system.

It was understood that the banks were studying how they could operate without using the U.S. dollar, according to legal and regulatory experts.

However, executives of the two banks and the regulatory institution in Hong Kong believed that there would be little chance for such development.

The two U.K.-based banks are now planning for the worst development, as the escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing would eventually affect individual customers and companies in China.

Meanwhile, HSBC allowed fraudsters to transfer a total of US$80 million from its U.S. business to accounts in HSBC Hong Kong in 2013 and 2014, according to leaked suspicious activity reports filed by banks and other financial firms with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fincen), BBC reports.

Market experts warned that the HSBC shares hold low value for long-term investment.

Steven Tam, associate director of Fulbright Securities, advised investors not to think that it’s a buying opportunity even though the shares had dropped below HK$30. Investors should consider stocks of technology companies or that of other sectors that are performing better than the banks, Tam said.

Patrick Shum, director at Tengard Financial Services, said the share price of HSBC is not likely to bounce back in the near term, as it is not only battered by the global economic downturn but also a number of other factors.

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