Friday 15 February 2013

European recession deepens but stocks look cheap

The eurozone recession deepened in the final quarter of last year. A report on Thursday showed that real GDP in the euro area fell 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, the biggest contraction since the first quarter of 2009.

Most European stocks fell on Thursday, although the STOXX Europe 600 managed to gain 0.1 percent.

At this point, European stocks may have become cheap. On Thursday, Business Insider reported a recent assessment by Albert Edwards, the analyst at Societe Generale who is otherwise mostly bearish. "Investing say, in European equities, on a ten year view at current valuations will probably result in good long term returns," he said.

However, Edwards thinks that US stocks are extremely overvalued.

See also a post by Barry Ritholtz.

Japanese stocks were also mixed on Thursday following the negative Japanese GDP report earlier. The Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent but the broader Topix fell 0.2 percent.

The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy unchanged after its meeting on Thursday.

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