iShares MSCI Sweden ETF

EWD

Market cap $326M

Europe's fundamentals are improving while America's decline, Kristina Hooper writes in a guest commentary.

The iShares MSCI Sweden ETF (EWD) which completed 3 decades as a listed product currently focuses on 42 Swedish stocks, the bulk of which are large-caps. EWD could benefit from Sweden's comforting macro-outlook: accelerating GDP, low exposure to energy supply chain disruption, and a healthy consumer and industrial backdrop. However, EWD's valuations are now largely in line with its Nordic peers and the European region.

One policymaker said officials were worried about a "layer cake of shocks."

More European countries should foster European capital markets by introducing funded pension systems similar to those in the Nordic ​countries and the Netherlands, Sweden's minister for financial markets said on ‌Friday.

European stocks are set to rise on Tuesday as investors brace themselves ahead of President Trump's deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.

The central bank last month left its key interest rate unchanged at 2%, but set out a number of ways in which developments in the Iran War might affect the eurozone's economic outlook.

The European Commission proposes 17 laws to unite capital markets, backed by major economies.

The European Central Bank is determined to prevent any energy-driven inflation from broadening out, but it is ​too early to discuss dates for possible interest ‌rate hikes, French central bank chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau told Italy's La Stampa newspaper.

The European Central Bank should not rush to raise interest rates to combat a ​surge in inflation and should instead take time to analyse whether ‌the jump is becoming entrenched, board member Isabel Schnabel said on Friday.

Anything more than a short-lived spike in inflation could warrant an increase in interest rates, ECB President Christine Lagarde said Wednesday. The ECB kept interest rates on hold at its last monetary policy meeting last week.