The S&P Should Beat These Stocks Today
LONDON -- European equities are set to end a positive week on a negative note Friday after data from China overnight suggested the global economy is still far from recovery. Trade numbers showed that exports from the Asian giant collapsed in July, growing just 1% year on year, while imports rose 4.7%. At the same time, new local currency lending fell from 919.8 billion Yuan in June to just 540.1 billion Yuan in July -- lower than analyst estimates and again promoting speculation that China will need to increase its economic-stimulus efforts.
U.S. stock futures are following the European markets lower today, with the S&P 500 (INDEX: ^GSPC) starting the day 0.39% lower.
Despite this dire performance, however, there are some individual names seeing yet worse losses. Here are three American depositary receipts the S&P should outperform today.
Bank of Ireland (NYS: IRE)
Ireland's national bank is down more than 6% after it reported its pre-tax loss almost doubling from that of the first half. Pre-tax loss increased from 556 million euros in the previous year to 1.26 billion euros, with CEO Richie Bucher suggesting that the bank's aim of rebuilding net interest margins to more than 200 basis points by the end of 2014 is looking challenging as central banks keep interest rates at record lows.
Telefonica (NYS: TEF)
The Spanish telecommunications firm is down 1.6% Friday, continuing to slide despite a report in Economista a few days ago that the company won a 448 million euro contract to provide broadband connections and fixed-line phone calls to the Catalan regional government for the next 10 years.
SAP (NYS: SAP)
The German software producer is down 1.5% in Frankfurt amid a broader weakness in the industrialized German market as the Chinese import data promotes fears for the country's export business. Today's weakness comes despite the head of Sybase -- a database and mobile software firm that SAP bought in 2010 -- saying the company has a realistic chance of overtaking IBM in database revenue over the next three years, winning customers with new applications and integration with mobile and real-time technology.
As usual, this morning's European trading saw some stocks lose ground -- and perhaps provide some European buying opportunities. Indeed, legendary investor Warren Buffett has recently spent more than $1 billion buying a European large-cap stock that's currently trading well below its 2012 high. If you want to know what Buffett has bought within Europe, this special Motley Fool report -- "The One European Share Warren Buffett Loves" -- reveals everything, including the price he paid. You can download the report today for free, but hurry -- the report is available for a limited time only.
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The article The S&P Should Beat These Stocks Today originally appeared on Fool.com.
Karl Loomes does not own any share mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of Ireland and International Business Machines.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended creating a synthetic long position in International Business Machines. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days.
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