Economics
Five Things to Watch During Europe’s ‘Terrible’ Earnings Season
- Dividend, buyback and executive pay reduction will be in focus
- Stocks may have priced in worst news: Bloomberg Intelligence
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First-quarter results from Europe’s biggest companies start to come through this week and market participants are bracing for the worst numbers in years after the Covid-19 pandemic led the region’s major economies into lockdown.
“Obviously, it’s going to be a terrible earnings season,” said Aaron Barnfather, the head of European equity portfolio management at Lazard Asset Management. “Western economies haven’t seen this kind of heart attack, economic growth stopping in the way that it has, pretty much ever in history, or at least since the war. So it’s extremely difficult to be 100% confident about what the environment will look like next.”