Economic Tailwinds Favor Diversified Portfolios

Favorable economic conditions suggest investing in diversified portfolios, with particular attention to emerging markets and Japan, where valuations remain more attractive and offer greater upside potential. This is the view of Javier de Berenguer, fund selector and market analyst at Mapfre Inversión.

In his assessment, corporate earnings “have been quite strong.” Within the leading S&P 500 index, 75% of companies “have already reported their annual results, beating analyst profit estimates by an average of 3-4%,” he notes. “We find this encouraging, and it supports our thesis of maintaining a modest overweighted position in equities.”

Regarding the future direction of the dollar-euro exchange rate, De Berenguer does not see “the structural dollar weakness that other analysts are predicting.” In his view, the underlying fundamentals of both regions are not diverging significantly, and the U.S. currency’s role as a global reserve will remain intact.

As for Europe’s growth cycle, De Berenguer observes that it “depends less on private investment and more on public spending, as we’ve seen with defense, infrastructure, technology. It will hinge largely on how far this spending continues to expand. If it keeps rising, we could well exceed forecasts and see an upside surprise in eurozone GDP data,” he emphasizes.