Europe Is Still In The Throes Of Covid-19, But Its Stocks Are Rallying

European stocks have been on the rise as international investors reposition their portfolios for the global economy to return to normal—a trade that hinges on smooth reopenings in the region.

The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 index has gained 4.5% so far this month, pulling ahead of major U.S. gauges, and on Friday hovered close to its highest point in more than a year. The S&P 500 has added 3.5% in the same period and the Russell 2000, an index of small-cap U.S. companies, has increased 6.9%. The Nasdaq Composite has gained 1% so far this month.

Analysts say this is due to a rotation from growth to value stocks: Investors have been snapping up shares of companies hit hard by the pandemic and selling those that benefited from stay-at-home orders. Europe is emerging as a beneficiary of this trade, which banks on a strong economic rebound.

“Europe is predominantly a value market, the U.S. is predominantly a growth market,” said Kasper Elmgreen, head of equity investing at Amundi. “This rotation benefits Europe disproportionately.”

Value stocks are thought to be trading below what they are currently worth. They are typically in established industries and pay dividends, and include banks, energy and industrial companies, which are also more sensitive to the economic cycle. Growth companies are younger and perceived to be innovative, with potential to do well in the future, such as technology.

But delays to the European Union’s procurement of vaccines is likely to result in its member states keeping social-distancing and travel restrictions in place for longer than countries that are inoculating their populations faster, such as the U.S. and Israel. This might mean that Europe’s economic rebound is slower and weaker. Italy reimposed stricter curbs in several regions last week and plans to lock down nationally over Easter.

“We are finding a little bit more opportunity outside of the U.S. [Value stocks] look cheaper and more undervalued overseas,” said Brent Fredberg, director of investments at Brandes Investment Partners in San Diego. “Now you’ve still got a long way to go in many of these companies, even though they’ve rallied hard.”

A key reason for Europe’s recent strong stock-market performance is the composition of indexes. The Stoxx Europe 600 is more heavily weighted toward industries that are considered to be value, such as financials at 17%, industrials at 16% and energy companies at 5%. Its weighting for technology and communications is 10%, compared with 37% for the S&P 500.

Amundi’s Mr Elmgreen has bought shares of European auto makers and companies that produce construction materials recently, and said he is “significantly underweight” U.S. tech, meaning he owns less than the benchmark he tracks.

Another driver of Europe’s performance is the bond market. The sense of optimism about economic growth has also driven fund managers to dump safe-haven assets such as sovereign debt, causing yields to rise and prices to drop. Government bond yields are used as a reference for the cost of debt in the broader market, including loans to companies. That rise in yields implies higher financing costs, benefiting lenders.

European banks have been among the best performers so far this year. Investors have been expecting the recent rise in yields to improve their net interest income, a key source of revenue. French bank Natixis SA has surged 47%, while Amsterdam-based ING Groep NV and Spain’s Banco de Sabadell SA have both risen 32%.

The Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF is up 5.6% for the year and the iShares Europe ETF has also risen 5.5%. Another iShares ETF that invests in European financial firms has climbed 12%.

Companies in sectors still curbed by government restrictions have also jumped. German travel company TUI AG is the biggest winner on the Stoxx Europe 600 this year, soaring 56%. International Consolidated Airlines SA has added 39% and InterContinental Hotels Group PLC has risen 15%.

But whether these gains are justifiable is still a question, according to Simon Webber, a portfolio manager at Schroders with a focus on global equities. “Travel has fundamentally changed, people are used to working productively, meeting and supporting customers remotely,” he said. Aviation stocks in particular “will be heavily scrutinized,” he added.

He has increased his holdings of European banks, but is also looking at buying more growth stocks such as electric-vehicle companies.

Chip makers are fighting to assure investors that the artificial-intelligence boom is racing forward. Wall Street might not believe it until Nvidia’s NVDA -0.98%decrease; down pointing triangle Jensen Huang says so.

When Huang steps up to the mic for his company’s earnings call Wednesday, he will have the world’s attention. What he says about Nvidia’s present will preview the future of AI, dictate the path forward for a tech-crazed stock market and influence an American economy increasingly tethered to hopes that the boom won’t go bust.

The $5 trillion chip maker has provided the key building blocks for AI since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 set off a race for dominance among OpenAI, Anthropic and established Silicon Valley giants. Now, as Nvidia backstops sprawling data-center projects and an exotic money pipeline to boost chip demand, the company’s influence is arguably bigger than ever.

But there are signs of trouble ahead. Political pushback to AI is growing. A bond selloff propelled borrowing costs to their highest levels in years. The hyperscalers that include some of Nvidia’s key customers—once cash-printing machines—are relying more on debt. OpenAI recently told investors its revenue rose by a tepid 18% in the second quarter while its losses deepened.

Nvidia is increasingly stepping in to shore up potential weak points across the market. Earlier this month, the company teamed up with six of Wall Street’s biggest firms on a $500 billion AI-financing plan, pledging to backstop lending to customers that can’t afford its chips otherwise. The chip maker last week also took a stake in Cloverleaf Infrastructure, which arranges power for data centers, and struck a $6 billion deal with startup Poolside aimed at developing a powerful open-weight AI model.

After watching shares in other chip makers and the so-called Magnificent Seven tech companies swing wildly in recent months, Wall Street is hoping Nvidia can beat expectations—again. The countdown is on.

“It’s kind of becoming more and more like the World Cup final than the Super Bowl at this point,” said Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management. “It’s just gotten to be that big.”

The company has smashed analysts’ earnings estimates for each of the 14 quarters since the AI boom kicked into high gear. Nvidia posted 210% annual growth in net income in its last three-month period, according to FactSet, making Wall Street’s 126% projection look pedestrian.

Expectations for a blowout second quarter have risen rapidly over the course of this year. All Nvidia will have to do to beat this target: outrun 95% annual earnings growth to more than $51.5 billion. Analysts project the chip maker will report record sales of $92 billion for the period, up from a forecast of $78 billion at the start of this year.

In July, big-tech earnings sparked volatility. Concerns about runaway capital spending spread across the sector after Alphabet’s and Tesla’s results, driving a $890 billion wipeout that contributed to the unwind of hedge fund Situational Awareness. Microsoft posted the largest one-day gain in market capitalization by any company, ever, after a quarter proving that it could still show investors the money. SpaceX rocketed higher after a record-breaking initial public offering, only to see $1 trillion in value evaporate.

Surging memory prices and borrowing costs have fueled fears that those and other companies will be unable to keep plowing more money into supplies including Nvidia chips. Shaia Hosseinzadeh, founder of OnyxPoint Global Management, has recently bought dips in AI-infrastructure stocks when Wall Street has strained to absorb massive debt issued by Silicon Valley.

“The macro data is really quite robust,” he said. “Of course, there’s a level at which everything breaks.”

Investors have kept pumping money into the AI trade despite concerns around chip consumers—and to the benefit of chip producers. That is why Nvidia’s outlook for semiconductor demand could send ripples through counterparts such as Micron Technology and Sandisk, developers of the data centers in which their chips reside, and a supply chain of power producers, contractors and other specialists that underpin the globe-spanning AI build-out.

“We joke internally that we’re all Nvidia analysts now,” said David Lefkowitz, head of U.S. equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.

The irony is that investors have tended to sell Nvidia stock immediately after blockbuster earnings, with shares falling each trading session after its four past quarterly reports. Some are betting that will be the case this time around, too.

The options market is pricing in a 5.3% swing, higher or lower, in Nvidia shares during the session following earnings, according to Option Research & Technology Services. That is higher than the 4.8% average move in Nvidia’s stock over the last 12 months after the company reports quarterly results.

In recent days, some of the most actively traded Nvidia options have been put contracts tied to the stock falling from its Friday value of $214.75 to $205 and $210 apiece, according to Cboe Global Markets data. Put options give the right to sell a stock by a set price and typically represent a bearish wager.

Many analysts remain optimistic. Frank Lee, global head of tech hardware and semiconductor research at HSBC Global Investment Research, recently raised his price target for Nvidia shares to $360 from $325, citing, among other things, Nvidia’s strategic partnerships with suppliers and its role as a top contributor to open-source AI.

Europe Is Still In The Throes Of Covid-19, But Its Stocks Are Rallying

Certain shares surge as investors look for beaten-down stocks.

Nvidia’s earnings will test Wall Street’s confidence in the AI boom.