Wednesday, February 29, 2012

US equities trounce Eurozone equities



The top chart compares the level of the S&P 500 to the level of its Eurozone counterpart, the Euro Stoxx index, while the bottom chart shows the ratio of the two. U.S. equities have massively outperformed Eurozone equities over the past five years—by over 60%. This could be likened to the price that the Eurozone is paying for its debt-financed bloated government spending.

7 comments:

  1. Hey Scott - I thought you were skiing?

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  2. I hope we are betters than the Euros. Seems to me we floated an awful lot of debt to engage in two wars, and to permanently double the size of military/security outlays in the past 10 years.

    Once you expand a federal agency, there is never ever cutting it back.

    Just check out the USDA.

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  3. How does this look after adjusting for dividends and exchange rate?

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  4. Scott-
    While you where shredding the slopes, we had a putative "fat finger" trade that whacked the 10yr, the 30yr, the USD, the Euro, gold. As Rick Santelli said, "that's some fat finger!"

    Point is, someway/somehow/somebody had a fit of nervousness about holding US paper. I have and still agree with you that yields are too low and on thin ice. Could this be the start of sentiment coming our way?

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  5. Jake: the Euro/dollar exchange is practically unchanged over the past 5 years. The difference between dividends is so small that it wouldn't make a noticeable difference to the bigger picture.

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  6. Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking about the longer term returns shown in your first chart. I figure the large Euro appreciation may push European equities above US over that time frame.

    Enjoy the slopes. Amazing pictures.

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