A toxic spiral of low inflation coalescing with poor prospects for economic growth looks ready to emerge in the euro zone. Because of the member states’ ballooning debt, deflation is a major threat in the region. The euro zone’s inflation rate has fallen by 50 basis points since the beginning of the year, to 0.3 percent in November 2014, falling quite short of theEuropean Central Bank’s 2 percent target. In a recent Bloomberg poll, 89 percent of responding investors saw deflation as a greater threat to the region’s economy than inflation in 2015. Further, Brent crude prices have plunged by more than 50 percent since June, adding fuel to the fire. U.K.-based financial analysis firm Oxford Economics estimated that with oil in its present slump, 13 European countries will see their inflation rates fall below zero in 2015. Yet the economic climate in Western Europe presents an opportunity for investors to reassess their equity portfolio allocation strategy.
All indications suggest that the ECB has run out of conventional monetary policy tools to counter the matter effectively. The euro zone benchmark rate has progressively fallen to 0.05 percent, whereas deposits have already entered negative territory. And then there are external factors that aren’t exactly helping the situation, such as the aggressive monetary policies of several other central banks.
abenomics.in Japan, for instance, is effectively exporting deflation to Europe. We have seen the yen depreciate with respect to the euro and the U.S. dollar, putting other economies under pressure to slash prices and costs to remain competitive. Only unconventional measures like full-blownquantitative easing(QE) might prove to be a game changer. Yet despite ECB president Mario Draghi’s recent speech in which he said that the ECB was ready to “step up the pressure” to fight inflation, such large-scale expansionary policies remain unlikely for two reasons.
首先，从欧元区的国家购买大量的主权债券将违反欧盟条约。该地区不允许货币融资，这意味着欧洲央行的授权在范围和广度上有限。其次，德国坚定反对QE。Bundesbank总裁Jens Weidmann最近描述了债券购买作为“危险道路”。其他欧洲央行理事会会员也表示关注。12月10日爱沙尼亚州长Ardo Hansson表示，他对央行大规模采购政府债券持怀疑态度。在没有广泛支持的情况下承担这种风险的风险可能导致区域解剖。
这种特殊的宏观环境专门影响股票投资者，其投资组合的预计返回可能未能实现多年。然而，股票市场仍显示出一些有吸引力的特征，这可能有助于投资者在未来几年内更有效地导航。
历史上的防御性股票在面临排气威胁和低增长的经济上一直是坚实的选择。特别是，高股息股票通常比其他股票在偏气经济中更好，因为股息支付的价值随着时间的推移而有效地增加。我们在纳斯达克对1990年至2010年的日经225指数的分析进行了分析，这两个据称对日本的“失去了数十年”，其特征是持久通货紧缩和缺乏增长。日本的名义国内生产总值与通缩密切相关，几乎没有在此期间增加，年度返回0.4％。
The research showed that stocks with the highest dividend yield displayed positive annualized time-weighted returns (including dividends reinvestments), significantly outperforming over the period those with the lowest dividend yield — by 3.8 percentage points a year. (Interestingly, a separate analysis uncovered that investors who allocate assets in Europe are already hedging against the region’s gloomy prospects. European equity investments have been routed toward income-oriented funds, which have recorded significant inflows of $4.1 billion since the beginning of 2014, according to fund data provider Lipper.)
Probing deeper, other winners emerging from the two lost decades in Japan are companies that pioneered innovative products and materials — and whose prices were essentially immune to depreciation. Top performers (taking into account dividends reinvestments) from 1990 to 2010 included Canon, with 9 percent annual growth; medical equipment company Terumo Corp., which registered 7.4 percent a year during the 20-year period; and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., which grew 6.1 percent on an annualized basis. Honda Motor Co., which was the first automaker to release a hybrid electric car in North America, in 1997, returned 8.7 percent a year to its shareholders from 1990 to 2010.
欧洲股市显示出类似的趋势。重要的研发投资和创新的合并提供了良好的公司在这种低通胀期间表现能力的良好指标。医疗保健和技术部门包括一系列股票，能够在这种背景下维持健康利润利润率和强大的定价能力。STOXX制药和生物技术欧洲指数包括一些最具创新性的欧洲公司，每年都会在2014年的STOXX Europe 600指数上表现出14和3个百分点。
A new normal of low inflation and feeble growth appears to be slowly emerging in Western Europe. Investment opportunities should nonetheless arise in equity capital markets for investors who are more tolerant of risk, however, notably stretched valuation and failure to deliver upon growth prospects. It’s time to rethink European equity portfolio allocation strategy. Watch this space.
Nicolas Hourcard is a European equities analyst withNasdaq Advisory Servicesin London.
本文中表达的意见是作者的意见，不一定反映纳斯达克的意见。
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