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Investors have flooded out of the US and into European funds as the economy heats up

Mike Bird   

Investors have flooded out of the US and into European funds as the economy heats up
Finance2 min read

Credit Suisse just hiked their Eurostoxx 50 target for the end of 2015 from 3,600 to 3,900 (it's currently at 3,594). That would mean a rise of about 25% this year, and would likely make European stocks some of the world's best performing.

They've explained that decision with a bundle of graphs and analysis, showing how Europe's recovery is looking increasingly real and investors are starting to notice.

Here's one of the best charts from them, showing just how investors have junked north American (mostly US) exchange-traded-funds in favour of those in the rest of the world, particularly Europe:

US and euro ETF flows

Credit Suisse

About $20 billion (£13.25 billion) flowed out of north American funds in the first two months of the year, while about $10 billion apiece has headed to "broad developed markets" and Europe.

That's on the back of more supportive policy: The European Central Bank is just getting round to its own QE programme, while the US Federal Reserve looks close to going in the opposite direction and raising interest rates. There's an increasingly positive economic outlook for Europe, which took a lot of people by surprise.

Here's Credit Suisse's 'macro surprises index' - a negative figure indicates that economic data is coming out worse than analysts expected, and a positive figure suggests the opposite. Europe's index is now at its highest level in two years:

Credit Suisse euro surprise index

Credit Suisse

It's good news for some and bad news for others. Credit Suisse stress that they're overweight Italian stocks based on the "silent change" there - with more reforms happening than investors realise.

But they've also downgraded France to underweight - they say it's got more work to do on the fiscal side than Italy, reform momentum is weak and there's very little sign of much coming from the cyclical upturn that's spreading through the rest of Europe.

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