危机四伏 现在投资欧洲安全吗?

Just when investors thought the Greece situation might be stabilizing, it grew direr. After several days of gains, European markets were rattled on Thursday and Friday as worries over Greece's ability to pay its bills intensified. Stock and bond markets turned down, while the euro lost more ground to the dollar.

Other European nations face debt challenges, too-so many that a debate has begun to rage over the future of the once-sacred euro itself. The fiscal woes are weighing heavily on the region's economic growth, which is expected to trail even lowly Japan in 2010. With so many problems to contend with, it is little wonder that Citigroup Global Markets recently called Europe the 'sick man of the world.'

The most successful investors, of course, spot opportunity where others see only danger-and possess the courage to rush in as everyone else flees. Most famously, in March 2009, with the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index plunging through 800 toward a devilish 666, a few hardy souls placed buy orders among the stampede of sells-and were rewarded with the short-term rally of a lifetime. Miniversions of that historic turnaround play out frequently in markets around the world.

Investors with a contrarian bent are starting to tot up reasons to consider Europe now. Among them: Greece's travails and the region's overall economic sluggishness mean interest rates should remain low for an extended period of time. That could augur well for riskier investments such as European stocks, whose valuations seem favorable compared with other parts of the world. French and German companies, on average, trade at about 17 times their earnings per share, while U.K. companies fetch about 14 times earnings. That is much less than the 22.5 and 19 found in the U.S. and China, respectively.

The pall over Europe, in short, may be obscuring the investing possibilities there. 'The top companies in the world are very global, and we are telling our clients to set aside a specific part of their fund to invest in the best companies, regardless of location,' says Colin Robertson, global head of asset allocation at Hewitt Associates, a pension-fund adviser. 'And Europe stacks up pretty well.' Mr. Robertson adds that, unlike the U.S. and other regions, 'The biggest countries [in Europe], France and Germany, didn't have unsustainable housing booms financed by dubious mortgages.'

In a recent report, HSBC said investors-itself included-might be overlooking the strong position that blue-chip multinationals based in Germany, France and the U.K. have in emerging markets. 'In China, for example, 60% of exports come from foreign-owned companies,' the report said.

The challenge for investors, as always, is to seize the opportunities while avoiding the traps. Both seem to be in abundant supply these days.

Opportunities

． Government bonds on the periphery. Recent Greek bond sales have sported yields much higher than safer German bonds. At the same time, most investors believe Germany won't permit Greece, a euro-zone member, to default on its debt. The latest auction of 5 billion ($6.77 billion) worth of Greek government bonds yielded 6.3%, about 3.25 percentage points more than German debt, and was heavily oversubscribed. Greece is expected to sell 46 billion in debt this year, according to S&P.

Other euro nations, including Italy, Portugal and Spain, seem to present similar possibilities. Their recent bond offerings carried yields lower than Greek debt, but higher than German bonds.

The risk is that those nations will, in fact, default.

． Blue-chip European companies. According to Citigroup Global Markets, European markets tend to perform well after bouts of euro-weakness, usually measured as a persistently long decline of more than 10%.

In the 12 months following a bout of euro weakness, European stocks tend to perform well, with telecommunications (up 36.9%) and technology (14.2%) among the strongest sectors. That is largely because many of the large, strong European companies, especially in Germany, are multinationals. The declining currency, in theory, should boost exports.

Europe blue chips also are known for paying higher dividends than their American counterparts, and now is no exception.

． U.K. stock market. By some measures, the U.K.'s fiscal kitchen is just as messy as Greece's.

But the U.K. stock market is a funny creature. Some 70% of revenue from companies in the FTSE-100 index comes from outside Britain, a good chunk of it from emerging markets. Mining companies like Rio Tinto PLC and Xstrata PLC list their stocks in London but focus their business mainly in places such as China and India, where economic growth has been far stronger than in the developed markets during the past year.

． European banks on the periphery. Further out on the risk spectrum, Dean Tenerelli, manager of the T. Rowe Price European Stock fund, likes well-run-but beaten-down-banks.

Even in Greece. The biggest banks there have gotten crushed during the debt crisis, but Mr. Tenerelli owns the National Bank of Greece in his fund. 'They're self-funding and they have a strong return on equity,' he says. 'We think that even if the economy gets worse, which it will because of the fiscal measures, National Bank of Greece will be a good investment.'

Traps

． Currency fluctuations. Foreign-exchange risk is a necessarily evil for investors dabbling in overseas markets. Predicting how currencies will perform is a dark art.

The best bet for investors: Diversifying holdings so that no currency zone-euro, sterling, yen or dollar-gets too dominant a position in a portfolio.

． Very poorly rated corporate debt.

Investors might be tempted by the fat yields on so-called junk bonds, issued by companies with credit ratings below BBB. They would be better served by sticking with bonds close to the top of the junk scale.