John Bennett europe recovery
The recovery in the European economy is pretty tepid, but the fundamentals have stopped getting worse, which is all it takes for investors to profit, says John Bennett, fund manager of Henderson European Focus Trust.
The recovery in the European economy is pretty tepid, but the fundamentals have stopped getting worse, which is all it takes for investors to profit, says John Bennett, fund manager of Henderson European Focus Trust.
Europe may have started to show signs of economic recovery – investor awareness is certainly increasing – but relatively poor corporate earnings may put the dampeners on any sustained market growth.
BlackRock’s Sam Vecht is looking to out of favour energy giant Gazprom to power his £111.1m Emerging Europe trust.
Vincent Devlin, co-manager of the BlackRock Greater Europe Investment trust, says European corporate earnings may have reached the bottom.
European equities are expected to be the best-performing asset class over the next 12 months, according to half of Schroders’ intermediary clients.
Summer may be a traditionally quiet time in the City, but the asset allocators we have been speaking with have not been afraid to make the big moves now.
Tim Gregory, head of global equities at Psigma Investment Management, reviews the fortunes of European equities during June, and considers the outlook for the sector.
According to yesterday’s Financial Times: “The eurozone finally looks to be emerging from its worst recession on record”.
Dexia Asset Management has maintained stable AUM over the past six months, and it stood at 72.7bn at the end of June.
I was lucky enough to be in Croatia as it celebrated joining the EU on 1 July, while many in Britain are campaigning to see us leave the union. In a similar way, while some investors see now as the ideal time to buy into Europe, others have sold out completely.
Optimism in the eurozone improved significantly over the past month as 45% of investors stated they expected the economy to strengthen over the coming year, compared to 24% in May.
The high profile departure of Chris Rice from Cazenove has put Europe ex UK firmly back on the agenda for some fund pickers, but if you do decide to sell out then where should you invest instead?