“Despite the Greek news flow, intention to own European assets is high and rising, though global growth remains vitally important for European stocks,” Manish Kabra, European equity strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey, said.
In contrast, Goldman Sachs expects the S&P 500 to return a negative 0.7% over the next three months and a negative 0.2% over the next six-months.
“We are underweight U.S. equities, as return potential is constrained by high valuations and margins,” the bank said. “Historically, non-U.S. equity markets have outperformed U.S. equities in the 12 months after the first Fed rate hike.”
For those who are wary of a potential pullback in the S&P 500 index, there are a number of bearish or inverse ETF options with varying levels of leveraged exposure to capitalize off a weakening S&P 500. The ProShares Short S&P500 (NYSEArca: SH) takes a simple inverse or -100% daily performance of the S&P 500 index. Alternatively, for the more aggressive trader, leveraged options include the ProShares UltraShort S&P500 ETF (NYSEArca: SDS), which tries to reflect the -2x or -200% daily performance of the S&P 500, the Direxion Daily S&P 500 Bear 3x Shares (NYSEArca: SPXS), which takes the -3x or -300% daily performance of the S&P 500, and ProShares UltraPro Short S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: SPXU), which also takes the -300% daily performance of the S&P 500. [Correction Prep With These Inverse ETFs]
For more information on the European market, visit our Europe category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.