It was only last year that Europe was considered one of the hottest sectors, and we produced research (‘En Garde!’) highlighting the sheer pace at which the discounts were narrowing, and how the sector was witnessing its highest inflows since 2015. Over a one-year period, to the end of July 2017, the average trust in the sector had delivered NAV total returns of 26% which – supported by that closing discount – translated to share price total returns of 39%. To put that in context, the average fund in the sector outperformed the average fund in any and all of the Investment Association’s OEIC sectors over the same period. However, this has all but completely been forgotten and, rightly or wrongly, Europe is now one of the most out of favour geographical sectors in the world. We believe it is likely to be ‘wrongly’, and having met with multiple European fund managers, we feel there may be a discrepancy between the opportunities in Europe, and the sentiment of investors. We look at a range of investment trusts and examine the case for Europe.
