Europe Is Still In The Throes Of Covid-19, But Its Stocks Are Rallying

European stocks have been on the rise as international investors reposition their portfolios for the global economy to return to normal—a trade that hinges on smooth reopenings in the region.

The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 index has gained 4.5% so far this month, pulling ahead of major U.S. gauges, and on Friday hovered close to its highest point in more than a year. The S&P 500 has added 3.5% in the same period and the Russell 2000, an index of small-cap U.S. companies, has increased 6.9%. The Nasdaq Composite has gained 1% so far this month.

Analysts say this is due to a rotation from growth to value stocks: Investors have been snapping up shares of companies hit hard by the pandemic and selling those that benefited from stay-at-home orders. Europe is emerging as a beneficiary of this trade, which banks on a strong economic rebound.

“Europe is predominantly a value market, the U.S. is predominantly a growth market,” said Kasper Elmgreen, head of equity investing at Amundi. “This rotation benefits Europe disproportionately.”

Value stocks are thought to be trading below what they are currently worth. They are typically in established industries and pay dividends, and include banks, energy and industrial companies, which are also more sensitive to the economic cycle. Growth companies are younger and perceived to be innovative, with potential to do well in the future, such as technology.

But delays to the European Union’s procurement of vaccines is likely to result in its member states keeping social-distancing and travel restrictions in place for longer than countries that are inoculating their populations faster, such as the U.S. and Israel. This might mean that Europe’s economic rebound is slower and weaker. Italy reimposed stricter curbs in several regions last week and plans to lock down nationally over Easter.

“We are finding a little bit more opportunity outside of the U.S. [Value stocks] look cheaper and more undervalued overseas,” said Brent Fredberg, director of investments at Brandes Investment Partners in San Diego. “Now you’ve still got a long way to go in many of these companies, even though they’ve rallied hard.”

A key reason for Europe’s recent strong stock-market performance is the composition of indexes. The Stoxx Europe 600 is more heavily weighted toward industries that are considered to be value, such as financials at 17%, industrials at 16% and energy companies at 5%. Its weighting for technology and communications is 10%, compared with 37% for the S&P 500.

Amundi’s Mr Elmgreen has bought shares of European auto makers and companies that produce construction materials recently, and said he is “significantly underweight” U.S. tech, meaning he owns less than the benchmark he tracks.

Another driver of Europe’s performance is the bond market. The sense of optimism about economic growth has also driven fund managers to dump safe-haven assets such as sovereign debt, causing yields to rise and prices to drop. Government bond yields are used as a reference for the cost of debt in the broader market, including loans to companies. That rise in yields implies higher financing costs, benefiting lenders.

European banks have been among the best performers so far this year. Investors have been expecting the recent rise in yields to improve their net interest income, a key source of revenue. French bank Natixis SA has surged 47%, while Amsterdam-based ING Groep NV and Spain’s Banco de Sabadell SA have both risen 32%.

The Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF is up 5.6% for the year and the iShares Europe ETF has also risen 5.5%. Another iShares ETF that invests in European financial firms has climbed 12%.

Companies in sectors still curbed by government restrictions have also jumped. German travel company TUI AG is the biggest winner on the Stoxx Europe 600 this year, soaring 56%. International Consolidated Airlines SA has added 39% and InterContinental Hotels Group PLC has risen 15%.

But whether these gains are justifiable is still a question, according to Simon Webber, a portfolio manager at Schroders with a focus on global equities. “Travel has fundamentally changed, people are used to working productively, meeting and supporting customers remotely,” he said. Aviation stocks in particular “will be heavily scrutinized,” he added.

He has increased his holdings of European banks, but is also looking at buying more growth stocks such as electric-vehicle companies.

As the war against Hamas dragged into 2024, there were worries here that investment would dry up in Israel’s globally important technology sector, as much of the world became angry against the casualties in Gaza and recoiled at the unstable security situation.

In fact, a new survey found investment into Israeli technology startups grew 28% last year to $10.6 billion. The influx buoyed Israel’s economy and helped it maintain a war footing on several battlefronts.

The increase marks a turnaround for Israeli startups, which had experienced a decline in investments in 2023 to $8.3 billion, a drop blamed in part on an effort to overhaul the country’s judicial system and the initial shock of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

Tech investment in Israel remains depressed from years past. It is still just a third of the almost $30 billion in private investments raised in 2021, a peak after which Israel followed the U.S. into a funding market downturn.

Any increase in Israeli technology investment defied expectations though. The sector is responsible for 20% of Israel’s gross domestic product and about 10% of employment. It contributed directly to 2.2% of GDP growth in the first three quarters of the year, according to Startup Nation Central—without which Israel would have been on a negative growth trend, it said.

“If you asked me a year before if I expected those numbers, I wouldn’t have,” said Avi Hasson, head of Startup Nation Central, the Tel Aviv-based nonprofit that tracks tech investments and released the investment survey.

Israel’s tech sector is among the world’s largest technology hubs, especially for startups. It has remained one of the most stable parts of the Israeli economy during the 15-month long war, which has taxed the economy and slashed expectations for growth to a mere 0.5% in 2024.

Industry investors and analysts say the war stifled what could have been even stronger growth. The survey didn’t break out how much of 2024’s investment came from foreign sources and local funders.

“We have an extremely innovative and dynamic high tech sector which is still holding on,” said Karnit Flug, a former governor of the Bank of Israel and now a senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank. “It has recovered somewhat since the start of the war, but not as much as one would hope.”

At the war’s outset, tens of thousands of Israel’s nearly 400,000 tech employees were called into reserve service and companies scrambled to realign operations as rockets from Gaza and Lebanon pounded the country. Even as operations normalized, foreign airlines overwhelmingly cut service to Israel, spooking investors and making it harder for Israelis to reach their customers abroad.

An explosion in negative global sentiment toward Israel introduced a new form of risk in doing business with Israeli companies. Global ratings firms lowered Israel’s credit rating over uncertainty caused by the war.

Israel’s government flooded money into the economy to stabilize it shortly after war broke out in October 2023. That expansionary fiscal policy, economists say, stemmed what was an initial economic contraction in the war’s first quarter and helped Israel regain its footing, but is now resulting in expected tax increases to foot the bill.

The 2024 boost was led by investments into Israeli cybersecurity companies, which captured about 40% of all private capital raised, despite representing only 7% of Israeli tech companies. Many of Israel’s tech workers have served in advanced military-technology units, where they can gain experience building products. Israeli tech products are sometimes tested on the battlefield. These factors have led to its cybersecurity companies being dominant in the global market, industry experts said.

The number of Israeli defense-tech companies active throughout 2024 doubled, although they contributed to a much smaller percentage of the overall growth in investments. This included some startups which pivoted to the area amid a surge in global demand spurred by the war in Ukraine and at home in Israel. Funding raised by Israeli defense-tech companies grew to $165 million in 2024, from $19 million the previous year.

“The fact that things are literally battlefield proven, and both the understanding of the customer as well as the ability to put it into use and to accelerate the progress of those technologies, is something that is unique to Israel,” said Hasson.

Europe Is Still In The Throes Of Covid-19, But Its Stocks Are Rallying

Certain shares surge as investors look for beaten-down stocks.

The 28% increase buoyed the country as it battled on several fronts but investment remains down from 2021