Opportunities in the European market

First-quarter results within Europe lead managers to remain cautiously optimistic with risks priced in and due wariness of euphoric market sentiment

This week's Conjecture covers the European market, focusing on opportunities across the region. Present were Rob Burnett, head of European equities and investment director at Neptune Investment Management and Kevin Yates, Europe equity investment manager at Baring Asset Management. How optimistic are you feeling at present? Kevin Yates (KY): I started the year reasonably optimistic and that has not really changed. I did some work on how the first quarter results have gone within Europe and around 60% of companies saw pretty decent earnings upgrades and about two-thirds backed that up wit...