I entirely see potential danger in buying European stocks, especially for those who do not have a long-term time horizon (although I think one needs a long-term time horizon for a lot of investments these days.) Still, I'd rather own Euro-zone stocks than Euro-zone debt, though. As Marc Faber has said a couple of times: "Look at the history, for example, of Germany, for the last 100 years. They had World War I. They had the hyper-inflation in World War II. The bond-holders got wiped out three times. If you owned Siemens, and you still own Siemens today, it was not a fantastic investment, but at least you still have something. You were not wiped out. I think that in equities you will be better off because you have an ownership in a company, than by being the lenders to companies, and the lenders, especially, to governments." (
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/marc-faber-i-think-we-are-all-doomed)
There was an article on Oakmark's Herro seemingly gleefully buying up European financials - it's too early and even if there was a recovery in these stocks, they have years of headwinds ahead of them. I'd rather buy things like industrials or consumer names that have been thrown out then financials. There could easily be a scenario where the financials have a lot further to go down.
I continue to think that this period will end badly, but I'd assign maybe a 15-20% chance that things could become " significantly unstable" (very elevated volatility, currency trouble, crash, etc.) Politically, things are a mess here and elsewhere - politicians certainly cannot be counted on. There are a few too many overly enamored with the Fed, as well - it will not be surprising if the Fed is turned to once again to paper over many of the realities of the underlying economy, but it'll be just another short-term fix that does not lead to anything long-term or sustainable. However, Bernanke's doctrine certainly shows his view, and we haven't really even gone through the entire doctrine's list yet. Europe is a mess and who knows how that will end - kicking countries out, break-up, etc.
As for more easing, you have the issue that many aspects of the economy become addicted to varying degrees to it. Caterpillar today: "The U.S. Federal Reserve's balance sheet expansion in the first half of 2010 benefited the economy, but those
gains seem to be slowing. Banks are expanding credit at a moderate rate, but money growth is slowing. We have not detected much benefit to economic growth from the central bank's policy of lengthening the maturity of its securities.
Eventually, we expect the U.S. Federal Reserve will resume expanding its balance sheet, but not soon enough to benefit growth in 2012. (
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/caterpillar-beats-estimates-lowers-guidance-blames-downbeat-outlook-china-strong-dollar-and-slo) We have major multinational corporations hinting rather strongly that they would like to see another QE.
I think a little attention should also be paid to the North - two deals with Chinese state-run oil companies for oil investments the other day, one of them quite large. One can debate the current status of the Chinese economy (and it definitely may be more problematic than it would appear), but whatever the situation is, it does not seem to have slowed the country down from venturing into Canada and Africa in search of resources and hard assets. When the Keystone pipeline was not approved, Canada essentially said they would find customers elsewhere, and it appears they continue to find customers in Asia. One can have issues with building an oil pipeline and that's fine, but China's persistence into resource countries shows that we live in a world where there is real demand for resources and other countries will be happy to step in if we do not.
Personally, I continue to move into hard assets, and have increased holdings in infrastructure, especially Brookfield Infrastructure (BIP), which has the flexibility to take advantage of things like the situation in Europe if individual infrastructure projects come up for sale. That is, however, an MLP and results in a K-1 at tax time. I also own a few other things that could take advantage of asset "sales" in Europe.
"Mrs. Merkel is really between a rock and a hard place, and her options are rapidly deteriorating. Even if they figured out how to disassemble the Euro without major problems (and they won't be able to do that)"
Germany leaves. They'd lose their export advantage, but the new Mark would be regarded with strength and they'd maintain purchasing power (and quite possibly even gain purchasing power vs current Euro levels). The remainder of the Eurozone would be kind of a mess, but the currency would drop, giving remaining countries some export advantage with a currency would probably drop to parity with the dollar quite quickly (or worse?).
Cheaper currency would encourage investment. That still doesn't fix the issue of solvency for many of the countries, whether the US or others would respond with intervention of the Euro dropped that far (as I've said before, the "pie" of the world has gotten smaller and everyone can't jump over everyone else to devalue to get an export advantage) or the fact that the world will likely remain a mess for a long time to come anyways, but Germany would no longer have to tend to its neighbors, which would cause economic issues at first but would also probably be politically popular with the German people, who don't seem to like having to bail out their neighbors constantly. The whole cheapening currency to gain exports is a short-term fix, as well, and a flawed approach without any actual substantial attempt to fix the underlying issues.
Who knows (although I do know I wouldn't go anywhere near European financials), just thinking out loud.
Additionally, as for the US, dropping gasoline demand during the busy driving season.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/us-usa-gasoline-demand-idINBRE86N18W20120724
