Julius Baer upgrades Italian, Spanish shares on ECB boost
LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - Swiss private bank Julius Baer (Other OTC: JBARF - news) expects shares in Germany, Italy and Spain to benefit the most from the European Central Bank's bond-buying stimulus programme, due to their greater sensitivity to the economic cycle, it said on Tuesday.
The bank's equity analysts upgraded their rating on Spanish and Italian shares to "overweight" from "neutral" while keeping an "overweight" stance on German stocks.
They also raised French equities to "neutral" from "underweight" while keeping the latter rating on Dutch shares.
The ECB's programme, known in the market as quantitative easing, is due to start this month and is designed to stimulate inflation in the currency bloc.
"Euro zone equities have reacted positively on the announcement of quantitative easing and should further benefit," Christoph Riniker, head of equity strategy research at Julius Baer, said.
"...we continue to prefer German equities, followed by peripheral markets (Italy before Spain) while still avoiding a Dutch exposure." (Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Alistair Smout)