Gavekal Capital: No Pain, No Gain: European Banks

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

No Pain, No Gain: European Banks

News that Italian bank UniCredit posted a large loss for the fourth quarter-- as it endeavors to clean up its balance sheet and cut its workforce in the face of the ECB's pending review of large banks-- was met with investor enthusiasm, sending shares up more than 6%.  In fact, most banks in the MSCI Europe index have been performing well so far this year:

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Is this positive performance the group's reward for its progress in reducing short-term debt levels from an industry average of over 200% in 1993 to over 100% in 2009 to just 41% today?:

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More than half of the group continues to trade below book value:

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That could change if investors continue to search for value among European financial stocks:

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And, in turn, we could see more point-and-figure charts with the beginnings of break-out patterns as these companies work to emerge from multi-year bases:

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