Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Abandon Europe, Investors.
Last year was a tough one for investors who plowed back into Europe. So?
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Europe's economies -- hence, Europe's markets -- have had a tough go-of-it over the last several years, despite central bankers making historic efforts to revivify the region. The U.S., by comparison, has been a raging success (despite the fact that, for investors at least, the post-financial-crisis U.S. recovery is much untrusted and much unloved).
Let's look at U.S. and European stock performances over several years. The S&P 500 Index returned 12.6 percent annually during the five-year period from January 2011 to December 2015 (including dividends), while the MSCI Europe Index returned just 4.5 percent annually over the same period.