Investors expect overseas equities outshining Wall Street

NEW YORK: Even though a steady stream of money has flowed out of US stocks into overseas markets, investors expect European and emerging market equities to rise further, supported by expectations for economic growth and accommodative central bank policies.

US fund investors put the most money into overseas equities since the second quarter in 2015, with more than half of the $90 billion outflows for the first half coming in the second quarter, according to preliminary Lipper data.

The MSCI Emerging market index has risen 17 per cent year-todate compared with a 4.9 per cent rise for Europe’s Stoxx 600 index and the S&P 500 index’s 8.0 per cent gain. Since emerging market central banks have been lowering interest rates and their currencies have been falling in recent years this is now helping to boost eco- nomic growth, according to Northwestern Mutual’s Chief Investment Strategist, Brent Schutte. But still the emerging market index is roughly 25 per cent off its alltime high reached in 2007 while the Stoxx 600 is 8.0 per cent off its record high. In comparison the S&P 500 is just 1.0 per cent below its latest record, reached in June 2017. The overseas indexes could reach new record highs over the next two years, according to Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago citing improving growth. “Finally the recovery has really picked up in the rest of the world. It’s moving along faster than the US because it’s trailed. The US is further along because the central bank here really was aggressive in quantitative easing first,” said Ablin.

For the second quarter, revenue for companies in European markets are expected to grow 5.8 per cent compared with 4.6 per cent for S&P 500 index companies and 11.5 per cent for emerging markets in the Asia Pacific Region, according to Reuters data.

Earnings estimates for European companies for the period stand out with a 13.5 per cent jump seen compared with 8.0 per cent growth expected for the S&P 500 and 6.4 per cent for emerging markets.

Northwestern Mutual’s Schutte said his company is betting that outperformance in emerging market and European stocks should continue and cited a one-two year timeframe for investment in eurozone stocks in particular.

His firm started moving money into non-US stocks around February 2016 when it replaced investments in US real estate investment trusts with equities in international developed markets in expectation of improving earnings growth.