Does Europe have room to push higher?

For many the Global Financial Crisis is a distant memory, having just seen the longest bull market in history. These extraordinary gains were achieved despite a difficult economic and political backdrop over the past decade. Recently the prospect of trade wars, a surging US dollar, rising interest rates and the withdrawal of stimulus by central banks have rattled - but (so far) failed to derail - the bull run. While the S&P 500 has rallied some 300% from its March 2009 bottom, Europe has lagged.

Though some commentators have favoured Europe, citing factors such as attractive valuations and improving earnings, employing this strategy would have failed to generate comparable equity returns.  One factor is US banks have rebounded significantly faster than their European counterparts, with the latter shackled by rigid balance sheets and bad loans in southern Europe. The US has also enjoyed the benefit of having tech-heavy indices, especially in the time of FAANGs and general sector strength over the past decade. Technology names make up over a quarter of the S&P 500, but under 5% of...