European equities: Reasons to be cheerful

The reasons to remain constructive on European equities remain in place: the potential for further profit recovery looks positive, valuations are close to historical averages and growth in the region continues to stabilise. That said, we have just exited a difficult first quarter and it is worth addressing the reasons behind this. We knew coming into 2014 that further positive momentum in European equities was reliant on a successful earnings season, which has not been the case. A great deal of pressure had been put on results following the significant re-rating of European equities d...