Europeans Lose Love for Stocks
In early 2000, the phones were ringing off the hook at Charles Schwab Inc.'s office in Birmingham, England. Then the bear market came calling, and Europeans, like many Americans, largely turned their back on stocks. Schwab threw in the towel on Europe, and the Birmingham office now sits empty, a "For Lease" sign in the window.
Since global markets bottomed out well over a year ago, U.S. investors have gotten heavily back into the game. But, despite a few signs of interest, Europeans for the most part still are on the sidelines. "We are taking a break at the moment," says Dianne Maginnis, one of eight women from southeastern England who in 2000 started an investment club named Charlie's Angels, a nod to discount broker Schwab. The group hasn't made a trade since Schwab left Birmingham last year.
The worry is that Europeans aren't just proving slow to rekindle their love affair with stocks, but that many have ended it for good. "A large percentage of people got so burned, they won't come back to the market," says Terry Bond, a director of ProShare, a British organization that promotes share ownership. "Many people -- the first-timers -- are lost forever." Instead, they are investing elsewhere; Mrs. Maginnis says she and her husband put money in real estate.
That could be bad news for companies hoping that the recovering economic climate will make it easier for them to raise capital in the stock market. While hordes of individual investors in the U.S. are salivating for the chance to buy shares of Internet search engine Google Inc., some European deals are generating a lot less enthusiasm among Europeans.
For instance, Deutsche Postbank AG, which plans an initial public offering next month, expects less than 20% of the �2.5 billion ($2.97 billion) offering to end up with individual investors -- a far cry from the two-thirds that went their way from a �12.9 billion slice of Deutsche Telekom AG sold in 2000.
Another test case will be the IPO for Italian electricity-grid operator Terna SpA, also expected to go public next month. The two IPOs are likely to be among Europe's biggest new offerings this year, after Belgian telecommunications concern Belgacom SA in March. About 145,000 Belgians bought shares then, accounting for 17% of the deal.
One reason for Europeans' sluggish return: Stock markets here fell more during the bear market than did those in the U.S. and they haven't recovered as much. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 36% from its 2000 high; the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index that tracks Europe's biggest shares plunged 60%. The Dow industrials now are about 15% below their 2000 peak, but the Stoxx index still is off 42%.
Today, just 14% of Western European households own shares, and only 10% own mutual funds that invest in stocks, according to GfK Ad Hoc Research Worldwide. That is a level below the U.S. during the depths of the Great Depression 70 years ago, when one study estimated that about 20% of households owned stocks. By 2002, 49% of Americans owned stocks directly, some through their employer-sponsored retirement plans, and 89% owned stock mutual funds, according to the Securities Industry Association of the U.S.
Not every European, of course, has bailed out of stocks. Jean-Pierre Likforman, a 37-year-old physicist in Strasbourg, France, began buying stocks in 1997. He remembers paying �76 for shares in alternative telecommunications carrier Equant NV, which closed at �5.66 yesterday in Paris trading. It still is in his portfolio. More recently, he purchased shares in France Telecom SA at �32 -- and watched them sink to about �20.
Now he is sitting on his losses and waiting to break even on France Telecom before investing again. In the meantime, he is thinking he should buy an apartment. "I trust the real-estate market more than the stock market," he says.
Some figure it is only a matter of time until Europeans return to stocks, in part because there are few alternatives. "It certainly will develop more slowly [than expected], but it's steady," says Michael Klaver, a spokesman for the German unit of Cortal Consors SA, one of Europe's biggest online brokers.
So far, there is little sign that Europeans are regaining their enthusiasm, even for the comparatively low-risk option of mutual funds. Take Germany, where individuals invested �21.6 billion in stock mutual funds in the first quarter of 2000. In the first three months of this year, they withdrew a net �6.6 million. The number of individual shareholders fell to an average five million in 2003 from its early-2000 peak of 6.2 million, according to the German Share Institute, which promotes share ownership.
Compare that with the U.S., where investors poured a net $85.8 billion into stock funds in the first quarter of this year -- the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 2000, when they invested $140.4 billion. Moreover, January's net inflow of $43 billion ranks as the third-best monthly total on record, behind January and February 2000, according to the Investment Company Institute, an industry trade body.
Those Europeans who have kept investing say they have become more conservative. Brigitte Aue, a retired secretary in Germany, invested thousands of euros in the country's Neuer Markt, a German version of the Nasdaq Stock Market, during its heyday. She figured her profits would finance a retirement home in Italy or France. But the Neuer Markt collapsed more than 95% from its peak and has been shuttered.
Gone, too, are her dreams of a place in the sun. Still, she insists she hasn't given up on the stock market and calls those who have "cowards." But she says she's focusing on more solid companies. "I read more [about them]," she says. "I'm not so naive anymore."
欧洲人拒绝再玩股票
2000年初，嘉信理财公司(Charles Schwab Inc.)在英格兰伯明翰的办公室的电话几乎被打爆。接著熊市到来了，同很多美国人一样，欧洲人普遍都不再没有涉足股市。嘉信理财在欧洲认输，伯明翰的办公室现已人去楼空，窗口挂著一块“待租”的牌子。
自从全球市场一年前见地大力反弹以来，美国投资者拿著大笔资金回到了股市中。但尽管有些迹象显示欧洲投资者的投资兴趣回暖，但他们多数依然还是在场边观望。“我们眼下还在打盹呢，”黛安娜?马吉尼斯(Dianne Maginnis)说。她和英格兰东南地区另外七位妇女2000年启动组织了名为“霹雳骄娃”(Charlie's Angels)的投资俱乐部，这个名称也是对折扣经纪商嘉信理财的一个认同。自嘉信理财去年撤出伯明翰以后，这个投资俱乐部就没有再做过一笔交易了。
令人担心的是欧洲人不仅在重燃股票爱火方面如吞温水，而且很多人乾脆一劳永逸地拒绝再玩。“很大一部分人一朝被蛇咬，十年怕草绳，他们不会回到股市里来，”英国股票所有权促进组织ProShare的董事特里?邦德(Terry Bond)说。“很多人－－第一次投资股市的人－－永远离开了市场，”转而投资其他领域；马吉尼斯说她和丈夫将钱投到了地产方面。
这对那些希望经济气候好转能使它们更容易地在股市筹资的公司来说可能是坏消息。就在成千上万美国散户投资者对购买互联网搜索引擎公司Google Inc.的股票的机会垂涎三尺时，一些欧洲公司的上市在欧洲人当中激起的热情却要小得多。
例如，计划下月进行首次公开募股(IPO)的Deutsche Postbank AG预计，计划募集的25亿欧元（29.7亿美元）股票中只有不到20%的为个人投资者申购，比德国电信(Deutsche Telekom AG)2000年129亿IPO中三份之二为个人投资者购买的规模真是相去甚远。
另外还有一家准备下月IPO的是意大利电网运营商Terna SpA。这两项IPO可能是欧洲今年规模最大的新公司上市交易之一，此前比利时电信公司Belgacom SA于三月上市。当时有145,000个比利时人购买该股，购买量占股票总额的17%。
欧洲人迟迟不愿重回股市的一个原因是：欧洲股市在熊市期间比美国股市下跌得更厉害，而且回升力度也不及美国股市。道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数较其2000年高点下跌36%的时候，跟踪欧洲最大股票的道琼斯斯托克600指数下跌了60%。现在，道琼斯指数已回升到了距离2000年高点还有15%的水平，但道琼斯斯托克指数还差42%。
根据GfK Ad Hoc Research Worldwide的数据，今天，仅有14%的西欧家庭持有股票，只有10%的家庭拥有投资股市的共同基金。这一水平甚至低于70年前美国大萧条时期的家庭持股水平，根据一项研究，估计美国当时有20%的家庭拥有股票。而根据美国证券行业协会(Securities Industry Association)的数据，到2002年，49%的美国人都直接持有股票，一些人则是通过雇主参与的退休计划持有股票，有89%的美国家庭拥有股票共同基金。
当然并不是每个欧洲人都从股市里割肉出来了。37岁的法国人Jean-Pierre Likforman在1997年开始买股票。他还记得是用76美元买了电信运营商Equant NV的股票，现在该股在巴黎股市上只有不到6欧元。但它依然还在Likforman的投资组合当中。最近，他还以每股32美元买了法国电信(France Telecom SA)的股票，此后该股一路跌到了20欧元左右。
现在，他被套住了，等待在法国电信这只股票上实现盈亏平衡。与此同时，他正在考虑是否应该买套公寓。“相比股市，我更相信房地产市场，”他说。
一些人认为，欧洲人重回股市只是时间的问题，部分原因是可供的投资渠道不多。“股市（比预想的）发展得慢，但市场是稳定的，”欧洲最大网上经纪行Cortal Consors SA德国子公司发言人Michael Klaver说。
到目前为止，几乎没有迹象显示欧洲人会重拾股市投资热情，即便是对那些相对低风险的共同基金也是如此。
以德国为例，该国个人投资者2000年第一季度在股票共同基金上投资了216亿欧元。在今年前三个月，他们□撤出了660万欧元。根据德国股票研究院(German Share Institute)的数据，个人投资者的平均数量从2000年初的620万人减少到了2003年的500万人。
再看看美国，今年第一季度投资者净投资股票基金858亿美元，是2000年第一季度来最高的季度总额，当时他们净投资了1,404亿美元。此外，根据投资公司学会(Investment Company Institute)的数据，1月份净流入股市的资金达到430亿美元，这一月度指标在历史上排第三，前二位是2000年1月和2月。
那些仍在继续投资的欧洲人说，他们已变得更保守了。Brigitte Aue是德国一位退休的秘书，股市高峰时期她在德国的那斯达克式市场Neuer Markt上投资了数千欧元。她说，她的盈利本可以让她能在意大利或法国买下一套退休住的房子。但Neuer Markt已从高点暴跌了95%，而且从此一蹶不振。
随之而逝的还有她在阳光充足地区置业的梦想。不过，她坚持表示她没有放弃股市投资，并将那些放弃了的人称作“懦夫”。但她说，她现在专注投资那些更稳定的公司。“我更经常地阅读它们的消息，”她说，“我不会再那么天真了。”
