AS the waters of uncertainty rise throughout the world, Europe is the one region apparently keeping its head above the waves. Apparently.
Wall Street has been showing resilience, but Joe and Jane Punter are getting restless and moving their money into bonds and money-market funds, a sure sign discretion is becoming the better part of investing valour.
Europe-excluding-Britain has been the winning region for mutual-fund investors so far this year. When funds investing in Europe and the United States are thrown together in a single database and ranked by their year-to-date performance, the European funds outnumber those from the US in the top 20 by 19 to 1, data from Standard & Poor's Micropal shows.
When European and US funds are ranked by five-year performance, the results are much more evenly spread, with European funds besting their US counterparts in the top 20 by a slim 11 to 9.
The comparisons show how fast European funds have picked up the pace this year. But as the growl of bearish economists grows, questions mount about how long Europe can keep up the pace.
European stock-market indices have tracked rapidly downward from mid-July peaks. Behind this deflation are a rising number of profit warnings from large industrial groups, inflating currencies, and growing evidence Asia's problems will slow exports and hurt jobs in Europe.
