STOCKS NEWS EUROPE-Italian stocks cheapest in Europe in terms of P/B

Italian stocks, which have strongly outperformed broad European stock indexes as well as U.S. markets so far this year, are still the cheapest stocks in Europe in terms of book value, according to data from Thomson Reuters (Frankfurt: TOC.F - news) Datastream.

Italian shares trade at 1.02 times book value, while Swiss stocks trade at 2.75 times book value, and overall European stocks trade at 1.85 book value.

Spanish stocks have a price-to-book ratio of 1.42, French stocks are at 1.53, Portuguese stocks at 1.58, German stocks 1.83, and UK stocks 1.96.

"(Italy's) price-to-book relatives to those of Continental European market are still 1-1/2 standard deviation below historical average levels," Credit Suisse analysts write in a note.

Most Italian banking stocks trade at below book value, with Banco Popolare (Dusseldorf: B8Z.DU - news) at 0.39 times, Monte Paschi at 0.48 times, UBI Banca (Frankfurt: BPD.F - news) at 0.58 and Intesa Sanpaolo (Frankfurt: IES.F - news) at 0.79 times.

Price-to-book: European countries http://link.reuters.com/waw97v

Reuters Messaging: blaise.robinson.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net