Profit growth in Europe between 7-9% for 2019
Santander AM | Stock markets maintain strong profits this year. The strength of the profit taking as a result of the new tariff increases to China should not hide their good behavior along the year.
Santander AM | Stock markets maintain strong profits this year. The strength of the profit taking as a result of the new tariff increases to China should not hide their good behavior along the year.
Ofelia Marín- Lozano | Interest rates on 10 year sovereign bonds, which are considered “risk free rate”, are at minimum but the European Stock Exchange, the EuroStoxx50 is where it was five year ago, despite the profits have grown by near 60%… Why have they triplicated the risk premium?
Miguel Navascués | Perhaps it will not be so serious, but stock markets are falling and trembling. What has happened? Is it the Armageddon expected for over a year? The Federal Reserve is withdrawing liquidity to quickly from the global system, as can be seen in the graph: 50 billion dollars a month in a heavily leveraged global system, too much, with excessive confidence in expectations that “this time it will be different”.
A more severe than expected economic downturn, the ongoing US-China trade war, eventually a hard Brexit, and unsolved challenges such as protectionism or the lack of confidence in the euro. Here are some trends that will impact markets in 2019.
Ofelia Marín- Lozano | In recent years, one of the most repeated commentaries when recommending investing in European stock markets tends to be: Why should invest in Europe when the US stock markets outperform year after year? In 22 years of history which coincide with the birth of the Euro Stoxx 50, for the first fourteen years the two markets moved almost in parallel. Only since 2011 can a clearly superior and sustained performance by the S&P 500 be observed.
One of the most objective measures for judging whether the stock market is expensive or cheap is the dividend yield. At the moment, the main global stock markets offer real returns which are superior to those of long-term sovereign bonds. For example, 34 of the 40 biggest French firms, those which make up the CAC40, have increased dividends over the last year.
Comparing the average PER of a current stock market index with what it was historically is a simplistic approximation and can lead to wrong conclusions. In fact, we should take into account the differences in ROE. In the big stock market indices (S&P 500 in the US, Euro Stoxx 50 in the Eurozone) companies with a greater ROE have been gaining more weight.
Bolsas y Mercados (BME) has published a report giving details of stock market trading activity in December, as well as a figure for 2017 as a whole. Some €651.466 million were traded in equities during last year, in line with the amount negotiated in 2016.
Ciudadanos (37 seats) was the party which won the most votes in Catalonia but will not be able to form a government. The independent block still has control of the Parlament with 70 seats versus the 57 won by the constitutionalists and the 68 needed for an absolute majority. Ciudadanos’ victory is significant, a difficult milestone to achieve given the current electoral law. But the secessionists were able to hold on to their absolute majority in the regional parliament.
Fitch has been the last agency to raise its rating on Portugal to investment grade last Friday. The previous increase from S&P in September already showed signs of the sick person being in very good health. Neighbouring Spain should also see an improvement in its credit quality and be included in the A tranche, at least by S&P and Fitch.