November Was a Bullish Tech Festival, December Could be Different

The strong rise in the technology sector boosted growth stocks while the fall in the oil majors weighed on the performance of the value segment

Fernando Luque 4 December, 2023 | 10:05AM
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Technology main

European markets celebrated inflation data and the pause in interest rates by the central banks last month. In Europe, the Morningstar Europe NR index (with dividends reinvested) rose by 6.7% in Euros in November and accumulated a gain of 11.1% for the year.

Analysing the November performance of the stocks that make up the European market, the higher gains of growth companies over value companies clearly stand out. Focusing more specifically on the large companies segment, the Large Growth style gained 8.7% versus 4.6% for the Large Value style.

Style Box

The poor relative performance of the value style is largely explained by the bad performance of the energy sector, which was the only one to end November in negative territory, down 0.9% in euros. In fact, the companies that contributed most negatively to the performance of Large Value were the oil majors such as Shell [SHEL], BP [BP] and TotalEnergies SE [TTE], which lost 1.2%, 2.5% and 1.5% in euros respectively.

But within this group of stocks, there were two companies that fell sharply: Germany's Bayer AG [BAYN] and Uniper SE [UN01], which declined -22.9% and 20.4% in euros respectively.

In the area of growth companies, the most notable were those in the technology sector such as ASML Holding NV [ASML], SAP SE [SAP] and Adyen NV [ADYEN] which rose by 10.5%, 14.8% and 69.0% respectively. The technology sector rose the most last month with a gain of 16.0% in euros.

The second most profitable sector was real estate, despite the difficulties posed by high interest rates, and the third most profitable sector was industrials, up 10.5%. Three of the largest companies in the sector rose significantly: Siemens AG (+10.9%) [SIE], Schneider Electric SE (+16.3%) [SU] and ABB Ltd (+15.6%) [ABBN].

Sector table

Regarding valuations, the consequence of the strong performance of large-cap growth stocks has was that this segment's valuation returned to overvalued territory, with a Price/Fair Value of 1.06 (indicating a 6% overvaluation).

Style box

Subscribe to Our Newsletters

Sign up Now

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

About Author

Fernando Luque

Fernando Luque  is Senior Financial Editor at Morningstar Spain 

© Copyright 2024 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use        Privacy Policy        Modern Slavery Statement        Cookie Settings        Disclosures