Financial Times
January 3, 2011
So loud have the prophecies been, predicting the imminent end of the eurozone, that it would have been easy to miss the fact that in terms of bank performance, at least, Europe has already split into two.
Last year saw sharp falls in the share prices of banks in the obvious eurozone bear markets of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, as well as in Italy, Benelux, Germany, France and Switzerland.
In fact, across western Europe, only the Nordic banks and, believe it or not, those in the UK, did well. The solidity of the likes of SEB, Swedbank and Danske is pretty well known – and investors sought them out in troubled times. The investment case for the UK banks is less clear. And yet, the shares of big British banks were up 8 per cent last year, led by the part-nationalised banks, with Lloyds stock jumping 37 per cent and RBS 27 per cent. In fact, Lloyds has quietly outperformed all but a handful of European banks – Poland’s BRE Bank (+44 per cent, the best), Russia’s VTB (+41 per cent) and Swedbank (+38 per cent), according to analysts at Citigroup.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment