Comparto tu visión. También he estado tentado pero me mantienen alejado todos los temas que comentas.
A nivel de tipos de interés yo tampoco me atrevo a descartar un escenario de “japonización” de Europa tanto por demografía como por el problema político de querer mantener Europa unida a toda costa (el problema de países tan endeudados como Italia).
La continuidad de tipos de interés tan bajos y la reticencia de los gobernantes a cualquier medida necesaria pero con coste político van a impedir el proceso de destrucción creativa del capitalismo (al cual por supuesto los partidos socialdemocrátas y demás izquierdas le echarán la culpa)
Antes de invertir en bancos en Europa os recomendaría leer lo que ya comentaban sobre ellos en 2012 los gestores de Marathon (del libro “Capital Returns” que me recomendó Ayuso, Gracias!):
BROKEN BANKS (SEPTEMBER 2012)
The necessary cleansing process for the European banking sector is being thwarted by politicians Marathon looks to invest in sectors where competition is declining and capital has been withdrawn, and where depressed investor expectations produce attractive valuations. At first glance, the European banking sector would appear to fit the bill. Competition and capital are seemingly in retreat, and credit is being repriced. Investors have been put off by impenetrable balance sheets and by the complexity of new banking regulations (Basel III runs to thousands of pages). Then there’s sovereign default risk to worry about. European banks are trading at a discount to tangible book, making them considerably cheaper than their US counterparts. Yet from a capital cycle perspective, the investment case for European banks is not clear-cut. First, take the question of whether capital is really in retreat. During the boom years, banks gorged on cheap capital to fund asset growth. Since 1998, eurozone bank assets relative to GDP have climbed from 2.2 times to 3.5 times (by the first quarter 2012). European bank assets have always been higher than in the US, since mortgages are generally kept on their balance sheets and European companies have limited access to the corporate bond market. Yet despite all recent talk of deleveraging, the ratio of bank assets to GDP hasn’t fallen. This is thanks largely to life support from the official sector, notably the European Central Bank. In fact, in the 12 months to 31 July 2012, eurozone banks actually increased their assets by €34bn. In short, European banks have accumulated a huge mountain of debt, and so far little has been done to reduce it. The banks are also short of capital. So far, banks have engaged in some of the easier deleveraging, withdrawing capital from abroad and retreating to home markets. As senior unsecured debt funding has diminished, so ECB short-term funding has taken its place. This form of funding, along with covered bonds, consumes a large amount of collateral. To attract new, senior unsecured funding (a requirement of Basel III), European banks will need to have more equity capital. McKinsey has estimated they will need to raise €1.1tn by 2021 to meet all the new regulatory requirements. One of the lessons from (bitter) experience of investing in banks in the US and UK is that when something as fundamental as the ultimate share count remains uncertain, the investment outcome is unpredictable. Another contributor to improved returns in bombed-out industries is consolidation, either through mergers & acquisitions, or through the failure of weak firms. Outside of Spain and Ireland, however, the Continental European banking sector seems incapable of rationalising. One story illustrates this point. After the rogue trader, Jérôme Kerviel, lost Société Générale some €4.9bn in 2008, the incumbent French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, was asked whether SocGen could now become a takeover target. She responded simply, “Ce n’est pas possible.” This attitude is symptomatic of the unwillingness of Europe’s national authorities to allow takeovers of the weak by the strong, especially if the latter are foreign. Many markets remain plagued by excessive numbers of banks–there are over 6,800 banks in Europe–and anachronistic structures. Even in Germany, that paragon of economic virtue, the banking landscape is littered with hundreds of unlisted local cooperative banks, savings banks (Sparkassen) and wholesale Landesbanken. As a result of this fragmentation, the German banking system generates little by way of profits. In essence, the capital cycle is not working in the banking sector in Europe, because the creative destruction that is requerid is politically unacceptable. Under the cover that the banks face liquidity problems and not a solvency crisis, eurozone governments are propping up their banks and are likely to continue doing so for years to come. For investors in banks with stronger balance sheets, returns are likely to be restrained by weak lending growth and excessive competition. Schizophrenic policymakers, who on the one hand exhort banks to lend more and on the other hand restrict lending capacity via onerous capital and liquidity requirements, make matters even worse. The threat of abrupt deleveraging in Europe has been replaced by the prospect of many years of slow and painful adjustment.
