European stocks have vastly outperformed their U.S. peers. The euro STOXX (.STOXXE) benchmark has beaten its U.S. peer, the S&P 500 (.SPX), by over 18 percentage points since September. "It's a very big move in European gas prices and that has dramatically improved the outlook. "Lower gas prices are surely a positive, but their rapid fall also tell us that they can rise just as fast should things go wrong. A closely watched index of European corporate credit (.MERER00) has seen its yield fall nearly 50 basis points this year.

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