Investors have never been more bullish about Europe

Investors are more bullish than at any time on record about European stocks, as the market reacts to the sudden and surprising recovery underway.

Economic data have been surprising on the upside and growth forecasts have been hiked across the board, while the European Central Bank's QE programme, announced early in January, was much larger than analysts had expected.

There are new figures out from Bank of America Merrill Lynch's latest global investor survey. 60% of respondents are now overweight eurozone stocks, meaning that they expect elevated returns:

That's higher than BAML has ever recorded for European stocks, all on the back of Europe's sudden and shocking recovery.

All of that is good for stocks, and a higher share of investors are saying that the eurozone's profit outlook is the world's best than ever before:

A lot of people were initially sceptical about the early signs of a recovery in Europe, and there have certainly been enough false dawns in the past five years to make that reasonable - but investors now look pretty convinced that this is real.

There's a lot still wrong with Europe, but finally, things look like they're genuinely getting better.