Stocks in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Spain Plunge Below Year 2000 Levels

[aja8888]

https://wolfstreet.com/2022/03/06/s...lunged-below-year-2000-levels/#comment-415264

Stocks in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Spain Plunge Below Year 2000 Levels: Buy-and-Hold Horror Shows

Interesting analysis of markets outside of the U.S. and where they relate to years past. The article is short, and it's worth your time to read the public comment section.

Major European stock indices plunged below their bubble highs from over two decades ago. This is not to say that they plunged that much this week, but that they had finally risen past their prior bubble highs from over two decades ago, powered by money printing, and then they plunged.

 

[NW-Bound]

Wow.

Till now, I never realized that European markets got hammered far worse than the S&P in the dot-com melt-down in 2000.

What gives?

PS. With the stock markets so lousy outside of the US, it's no wonder that ERs living off their investment is a unique phenomenon in the USA. In other countries, you work till you get pension or SS. I have been so fortunate.

 

[aja8888]

When I read the article, I was surprised too. We don't hear much about their markets on a daily basis. I have no foreign based stocks for this reason. Of course some big U.S. companies have operations in the EU and other places and their stocks do suffer if foreign operations are doing badly.

 

[NW-Bound]

One mitigating factor we must consider is that foreign stocks pay much higher dividends than US stocks.

The total return of the former will not look as bad as when we consider only stock prcies.

 

[aja8888]

A big point here is that all stock markets are heading in one direction....down. And a crash historically happens over a period of time. But some of the high flyers dive quickly. Look at the "meme" stocks (and those called tech that are not really tech) and what has happened to them in the U.S. since last November.

 

[Sunset]

I've been lucky to not have too much foreign stock, and that is not following the professional advice.

What has always bugged me about foreign stocks is the extra costs for businesses in some countries like France. There are rules about how many holidays and sick time that employees get over there, and how quickly an employee can be laid off or fired, etc. which makes life nicer for those people. It does also make it more expensive to run the business.

Hopefully we avoid a 20 yr down cycle in the market.

 

[Lsbcal]

I have a 40% allocation to international stocks when they are trending better then the US. Over the last 9 months this allocation has been in the SP500 because of it's relative trend.

The results over the last 9 months for the asset classes I compare:

SP500 = +1.6%
International small cap = -19.8%
International large cap = -11.1%

If and when the markets bottom, I would guess that international small caps would have a resurgence.

 

[young-ish]

I've maintained a 50/50 US/Intl split in my equity holdings over the last 15 years. I don't want too much of my assets tied up in the country that I live in. Talk to a Japanese investor from 1989.

 

[Dtail]

Got out of Int'l stocks in 2019 and not convinced to go back in instead of all US.

 

[Sunset]

I've maintained a 50/50 US/Intl split in my equity holdings over the last 15 years. I don't want too much of my assets tied up in the country that I live in. Talk to a Japanese investor from 1989.

Problem with having assets tied up in some other Country is one has to be careful which ones: Just ask someone in Ukraine, or Russian right now.

While I don't have too much foreign stock, I do have some hard assets in a foreign country and it was painful to see currency depreciate 25% compared to USD.

 

[Letj]

Wow.


PS. With the stock markets so lousy outside of the US, it's no wonder that ERs living off their investment is a unique phenomenon in the USA. In other countries, you work till you get pension or SS. I have been so fortunate.

I don’t know how true this is. Most of the people I have seen frolicking overseas for extended period of time are Europeans but then again they may just be on a shoe string or working their way around the world. I think Canadians may be able to do it. We’ve seen some of them on this forum and in some cases they had higher net worths than Americans.

 

[Lsbcal]

I think there are well off people in most countries.