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Senior Equity Strategist

European equity sectors’ positive vectors

European equities have recovered strongly in 2025. Cyclical recovery, an easing central bank, and military driven fiscal stimulus all support a continuation of this trend. The still-substantial valuation gap between Europe and US stocks helps too. 

After years of underperformance versus US stocks, European equities have emerged as an attractive destination this year. We think a sectoral approach offers investors a more precise exposure to the region’s structural growth and valuation opportunities than a broad allocation.

ETF flows confirm investors are supporting the sector approach, with big net inflows into European sector ETFs so far in 2025, particularly into Financials and Banks, Industrials, and Defence & Aerospace ETFs. Performance has helped: Figure 1 shows that most European sectors have outperformed their US counterparts year to date.

The selective sector approach to European equities

The reasons we find for investing in European sectors include:

Price: the MSCI Europe Index has an approximately 30% price-to-earnings (P/E) discount to the S&P 500 index. Differing sector weighting methodologies partly explain this — but lower valuations make Europe less vulnerable to a big correction, in our view.

Sector leadership and dispersion: Europe had a very strong start to the year as economic recovery, and big defence plans and infrastructure spending boosted Financials and Industrials. Utilities also gained as a defensive play owing to raised electricity demand expectations. Germany’s €500B infrastructure plan, and the green transition, also boosted sectors tied to renewable energy and advanced manufacturing.

Risk management through diversification: sector ETF exposures enable tactical rotation. Pairing cyclicals such as Industrials with defensives such as Utilities can help mitigate volatility. This is relevant as geopolitical risks and tariff impact uncertainty persist. We continue to suggest considering a barbell strategy of pairing a high-performing sector such as Information Technology with a lowly correlated sector such as Health Care.

Sector dispersion can provide an alpha opportunity. The difference between the top and bottom performing sectors in MSCI Europe in 2025 so far is wider than the last two years — and greater than within US large-cap sectors, as Figure 2 shows.

Figure 2: Europe’s sector equity return dispersion is widening

European Q3 results show earnings beating expectations

Almost 80% of European companies — more in market cap terms — have reported third-quarter earnings, with earnings on beating consensus expectations, and sales in line with those estimates. The results are mixed across cyclical sectors and defensives, and there is a clear difference between sectors with a revenue base in Europe, such as Utilities, which have been delivering stronger earnings and top-line beats, and exporters such as Consumer Discretionary.

Financials delivered nearly 20% earnings growth in Q3, supported by resilient net-interest income and cost discipline amid European Central Bank rate cuts. Upside surprises were prevalent across insurers and financial services providers and banks. Information Technology delivered a strong earnings season, posting an impressive 16% earnings-per-share (EPS) growth, bolstered by surging AI-related demand for semiconductor tools, and cloud services. Eight sectors in total have beaten earnings expectations, with Health Care, particularly the large pharma companies, and Energy, led by the oil and gas majors, worthy of note.

Consumer Discretionary, particularly automotive sales, and property operators within Real Estate have disappointed.

Our sector selections

We detailed the sectors we believe are best placed to outperform in Q4 in our latest Equity Sector Compass.

The three Europe sectors are:

  • Industrials: benefiting from economic recovery, structural themes around defence spending, infrastructure building and datacentre demand.
  • Health Care: deals between big European pharmaceutical companies and the US administration resulted in lower prices for drugs sold — but more certainty in terms of tariffs and regulation. The sector is undervalued and under-owned. 
  • Information Technology: the names are not as familiar as the US Magnificent 7 but Europe’s tech sector offers exposure to significant growth in AI infrastructure, semiconductor demand and cybersecurity without the concentration issues of the Mag-7 stocks.

 How to gain exposure to European equities:

Read more on our Q4 Europe sector picks here.

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