Uneven recovery gives opportunity to exploit market anomalies

ON EUROPE

JEFF TAYLOR, head of European equities at Invesco Perpetual on Europe

Q2’s GDP figures highlighted divergences within the eurozone.  Growth forecasts have been revised upwards by some, but this is almost entirely down to a better performance by Germany. A 2.2% quarterly surge in GDP there reflected the benefits of its openness to trade and a strong competitive position. Annualised GDP growth was 3.7% in Q2 – the fastest in the G7 leaving the overall annualised eurozone GDP growth rate at 1.7%. Elsewhere, France and Italy posted modest expansions in Q2 and their exports are likely to continue to underperform Germany’s. Meanwhile, Q2’s data reinforced dow...