With U.S. interest rates set to rise and Europe’s likely headed lower, certain assets on the continent look like a good bet, Goldman Sachs said.
It’s staying overweight European equities and local-currency credit on a three-month basis to position for “tailwinds” from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the currency.
“We expect the ECB to ease further at the December meeting to counter downside risks to inflation,” Goldman said in a note Wednesday, forecasting the deposit rate to be lowered by 10 basis points to negative 30 basis points. It also expects the bank to extend its quantitative easing (QE) program through the end of the third quarter of 2017.
A basis point is 1/100th of a percentage point.
That’s likely to weaken the euro as funds flow out of the currency and toward assets offering better-than-negative returns.
