By Tawhid Ali, Nelson Yu
European value stocks have rallied recently. But identifying cheap stocks with recovery potential is still extremely difficult. It's time to consider new approaches to discover attractively valued equity opportunities across Europe's complex market landscape.
From the sovereign-debt crisis to Brexit, Europe seems to have had more than its fair share of challenges to market stability in recent years. As a result, the forces that have shaped European equity valuations have changed. Systemic market headwinds are increasingly driving stock valuations instead of stock-specific controversies.
What's Driving Cheap Stocks?
Consider the cheapest 20% of European stocks, based on price/book (P/B) value. Our research shows that a falling proportion of the share-price volatility is attributable to company-specific issues such as operating fundamentals, management behavior, or equity and debt issuance trends (Display). At the same time, more and more stocks in the market are finding their valuations compressed because…