Brokers in Dublin and elsewhere have been almost tripping over themselves in the past few months, telling us that this unprecedented bull market is set to stampede onwards and upwards. But one bear has emerged this week, warning of a 10 per cent fall in international markets by the end of the year and telling his clients to get out of equities and into cash.
BT Alex Brown's European equity strategist Ian Harnett thinks "the Euro-bubble is looking fragile" and that cyclical sectors and countries like Germany are the most exposed given their relatively high valuations at a time when earnings are coming under pressure.
"It has made me feel that everyone is being far too complacent about the outlook for European economic growth as well as earnings prospects. One of the lessons we should have learnt from the last year is that any time there is any doubt at all about strong growth and low inflation co-existing then p/e multiples are going to find it very difficult to stay above 20 times."
The Alex Brown analyst had some words of consolation for specific sectors and believes that bond-sensitive stocks (banks), pharmaceutical (Elan), telecom (Telecom) and media shares should perform well.
Taking the contrary view are analysts from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter who are still in the bull ring, forecasting a 15 per cent rise from current levels in Europe. The Asia situation is just a "dampener" and fears of a Euro-slowdown are "overemphasised".
Davy's Robbie Kelleher remains a bull and believes there is little to stop the markets hitting record levels in the next year and a half, with the ISEQ (now around 5400), hitting 6500 by the end of this year and 7000 by the end of 1999.
The arrival of EMU which will see Irish p/e converge towards European levels is one major factor behind the bulls of Dawson Street, with Irish p/e's now averaging 19 compared to multiples of 25 in Europe.
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