International Business Times UK Video link:
Forget-greek-debt-woes-buy-into-european-market-recovery-1507545
I have to admit it - I am sick of being asked over and over again for my opinion on Greece.
Will it stay in the Eurozone or will it be forced to leave? Is the Greek drachma going to come back? And so on and so on...
Here is what I really think deep down: whether Greece stays in the Eurozone or not, I believe that you should be investing in Eurozone stocks anyway.
I have three reasons for believing this:
1. The European economy is improving and Greece is small
Greece is the 13th-largest economy in the EU (out of 28 member states) and only contributes 1.3% to the EU by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the classical measure of economic output.
So it frankly hardly moves the needle compared heavyweights such as the UK, Germany, France and Italy.
European economies are improving. Not just the UK's, which we can all see through the lens of the employment and property markets, but also in Continental Europe. In Germany, unemployment rates remain at generational lows. Wage growth is now starting to pick up, giving employees more purchasing power.
At the same time, the cost of living in the UK is staying low, thanks to the fall in oil and petrol prices plus subdued food prices. The cost of eating is being depressed in large part by ongoing price wars between supermarket chains and discounters like Aldi and Lidl.
Finally, the weaker euro has helped boost exports from Germany, Ireland and Spain to the rest of the world (while the strong pound is making the UK's exports relatively more expensive).
All of this has boosted the Euro zone's economic growth rate, as measured by GDP.
Eurozone GDP growth has picked up
Source: tradingeconomics.com
2. Reforms are boosting both economies and company profits
Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France and Italy have made varying degrees of progress in lifting regulations and easing job-market rules, changes that can lead to better growth. Ireland and Spain are now the fastest-growing…
