BofA stays 'overweight' on France, Spain and Italy, upgrades UK
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Tuesday 30 Jun 2020
(Sharecast News) - Equity strategists at Bank of America reiterated their 'overweight' stance towards French, Spanish and Italian stocks, telling clients, notwithstanding a possible setback in the States, the European recovery was proceeding more smoothly.
"Even if the US suffers a setback, the European recovery is proceeding more smoothly," they said.
"As a consequence, we expect the Euro area PMI to rise to 53 in August and 58 in September, in line with levels reached in past recoveries."
In the same research note, they bumped up their view on UK stocks, from 'underweight' to 'marketweight', arguing that the downside looked limited.
To back up their case, they pointed to the extent of the undershooting by the UK's relative price index of its macro-implied fair-value.
German shares on the other hand had already factored in a lot of good news, so the stayed at 'marketweight'.
On their estimates, the Stoxx 600 had room to gain a further 15% by November, with French equities seen 6% higher as rising Bund yields in response to improving PMIs cap the upside
Spain and Italy meanwhile were seen outperforming by 13% and 6%, respectively, with both expected to benefit from the heavy-weighting of lenders' shares.
Their key 'underweight' meanwhile were Swiss stocks, given their tendency to underperform when US Treasury yields rose and the heavyweight of bond proxies - such as pharmaceuticals - among them.
For all regions however, there was ample room for an economic rebound given the current depressed state.
And in the case of America, "the more virus cases rise in the US, the stronger the incentive for state governments to make use of tools that have proven to be effective elsewhere (such as mandatory mask wearing, curbs on mass gatherings and intensive testing)."
"We remain positioned for a macro recovery: the market is caught between improving economic data, on the one hand, and rising US COVID-19 cases, on the other.
"We think there is a strong case to stay positioned for a continued macro rebound [...]."
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