As US and European stocks glide effortlessly higher, even the most ardent of US bulls has begun to realize things are getting out of hand. In order to keep his AUM flowing (and afford the next yacht), the friendly local asset gatherer will offer insights like… “there is value overseas” or “Europe is cheap” in hopes that his audience is none the wise as to the true state of affairs elsewhere in the world, let alone in the US. The truth, the gap between US and European earnings has never been wider and with 3 (or 4) false dawns already, European earnings (supposedly the true mother’s milk of the stock market) continue to fall – as the strong ‘whatever-it-takes’ EUR does nothing but stymie their recovery.
S&P 500 earnings are 14% above their 2007 peak while euro-area profits are 53% below their all-time high in March 2008 (of course, this is not firm EBITDA but earnings per share – which is a mirage of low-credit-cost buyback-driven float shrink in some nations of the world… but still)
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/rDGRm3YLSY0/story01.htm Tyler Durden