Party is not yet over for European peripherals

EUROPE

Manu Vandenbulck, senior portfolio manager, ING Emerging Markets High Dividend and Europe High Dividend funds, says whilst peripheral Europe's recovery still has a long way to go, their strong performance shouldn't be ignored

Despite the impressive tightening of government bond spreads for European peripheral countries, there are expectations that peripheral equity markets could outperform the broader market as economic data continues to improve in 2014. During the emerging market driven financial market turmoil in the early part of 2014, it was not only EM assets which came under pressure. Risky assets in the developed market space were confronted with a sell-off. For instance, spreads of high yield credits widened. However, one category that held up quite well during the correction were government bonds ...