Bulls and Bears: Lessons from Some European Countries

Abstract

This paper analyzes the recent behavior of stock markets in four European countries. More specifically, we describe the bull and bear phases of those markets, comparing some of their more relevant features across countries and with those of the US. We also comment on the degree of concordance of stock market phases across countries. We find that cycles in European countries have become substantially more concordant in the recent years, a result that was to be expected given the increased integration of the European financial markets, but that the degree of concordance is not high.