You can add Dennis Gartman, publisher of the Gartman Letter, to the list of those who see European stocks as more attractive than their U.S. counterparts.
"[My] interest is not in owning U.S. shares at this point," he told
CNBC.
"I think it's still a long-term bull market and corrections ought to have been bought. Yesterday I put out a very strong recommendation to be a buyer of equities on this weakness with focus on Europe, [in particular] France and Germany." Gartman cited Japan as well.
"In those markets, every high has been higher, every low has been higher and they are indeed bull markets. It's abundantly clear," he noted.
"I'm far more impressed by what's going on in Europe, especially with the continuation of the weak currency, which is supportive of stronger stock prices at least for the moment. So my focus is over there not over here. Nonetheless, can you see a 9 percent correction? It's possible, but I think it's very doubtful," Gartman added.
"If everyone is quantitatively easing — if everybody is becoming monetarily expansive — if the monetary wind is behind you, silly you to fight that monetary wind . . . I'd rather have the wind at my back and the wind is at my back."
The U.S. bull market is six years old, and the S&P 500 has tripled during that period. So what could put that extended party to an end?
"We think the bull market end-game is either inflation hurting bonds, EPS [earnings per share] recession wounding stocks, or speculative excess," Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a commentary obtained by
MarketWatch.
As for inflation, so far it is nowhere to be seen. Consumer prices slid 0.1 percent in the year through January.
When it comes to earnings, there is more room for concern. The 496 S&P 500 companies that had reported earnings as of Friday, showed blended profit growth of just 3.7 percent, according to FactSet. And analysts predict profits will fall 4.6 percent in the current quarter, it says.
Elevated price-earnings ratios might be a sign of speculative excess.
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