Europe’s stock market has a reputation problem. Investors have long treated the region as an afterthought next to Wall Street and fast-growing Asian markets, yet its benchmark index has quietly kept pace with, and at times beaten, the S&P 500.
That reputation is not entirely undeserved. Europe has fewer high-growth companies, shallower capital markets, and a long-term earnings outlook that has rarely rivaled the U.S. or Asia’s fastest-growing tech hubs, which is part of why its recent run has gone largely unnoticed.