A closer look at Europe’s recent equity outperformance vs. US

The recent pull-back of MSCI’s USA Index of US mid-and large-cap equities has been accompanied by some unwinding of its relentless outperformance of MSCI’s Europe Index of their European counterparts. This is the first time that the Europe has outperformed the US in common-currency terms since a brief period between the middle of May and 8^th June. In that period, Europe’s outperformance was essentially the result of a big rise in the euro against the dollar. That has not been the case this time around, with the outperformance also occurring in local-currency terms.