Euro Area

European equities continue to inch closer to record highs, yet, their earnings outlook is deteriorating. How can investors build hedging portfolios using the message from earnings and valuations to protect themselves against the growing risk of a pullback?

We are increasing our gold price target to $2,200/oz, given the increasing risk of fiscal dominance in the US, rising geopolitical risk, the return of trading blocs and currency debasement risk. These risks also will increase economic uncertainty, which also will be bullish for gold.

We Introduce our new macro models for the Eurozone’s equity earnings, which include sectoral forecasts. Find out what they predict for the next six-to-nine months.

European inflation has further downside and core CPI will soon begin to fall too. However, European growth will remain soggy in Q2. What does this environment mean for investors?

Is the European banking system hiding nasty surprises? How will the recent stress affect European growth and the ECB’s policy outlook?

In Section I, we discuss the implications of the banking crisis that emerged in March. We do not expect what happened in the US or Europe to morph into a full-blown meltdown of the financial system, but this month’s events will likely lead to a further tightening in bank lending standards, raising further the odds of a US recession over the coming year. We continue to recommend an underweight stance toward risky assets versus government bonds over the coming 6-12 months, and defensive positioning within a global equity portfolio. In Section II, we estimate the impact of recently-passed US legislation on US business investment over the structural horizon and conclude that it will indeed boost capex growth over the coming several years. Assets poised to benefit from this trend will likely underperform over the coming year but should be bottom-fished following the next recession.

The recent uncertainty regarding the health of the banking systems in the US and Europe is not having any material impact on overall financial conditions or economic sentiment. The aggressive rate cut expectations, especially in the US, are unlikely to be realized. Although the macro growth and policy backdrop remains unfriendly for corporate debt on both sides of the Atlantic.

China is launching a diplomatic charm offensive to improve relations with the world excluding the United States. But China’s proposals in Ukraine and the Middle East are overrated in their ability to restore global stability and reduce geopolitical risk.

The development of trading blocs and the rise of economic warfare will lead to the inefficient allocation of resources. Higher fiscal outlays and tight commodity supplies will feed into energy prices driving headline inflation. It also will drive demand for inventories as hedges against supply volatility globally higher. We remain long equity exposure via ETFs to oil and gas producers, and metals miners. We also retain our exposure to commodities via the COMT ETF.

It is easy to conclude that European equities are attractively valued by looking at multiples; however, a method rooted in fundamentals is essential to find out which bourses are genuinely cheap.