Euro Rally: Earnings Lift, Political Drag 58%
European equity markets are pricing a 58% probability of sustained outperformance through year-end — and the number deserves scrutiny before it deserves celebration. Stoxx 600 profits tracking toward 22% second-quarter growth is real, but the model embedding that rally carries a hidden assumption: that French fiscal dysfunction resolves cleanly before its presidential election cycle forces it. It will not. A budget showdown with no governing majority is not a negotiating inconvenience — it is a structural drag on the continent's second-largest economy arriving precisely when wildfire recovery costs are exposing an insurance protection gap that governments, not markets, will absorb. I think the earnings story is genuine. I think the political story is being discounted by approximately fifteen percentage points.
