rest of Europe and have held up in terms of relative performance, despite the underperformance of cyclicals," wrote UBS in a note on Thursday. "The domestic macro backdrop is strong, but French equities have outperformed and valuations are slightly expensive relative to Europe by 7% on price to book value and 8% on dividend yield," it added.
France's benchmark CAC-40 index is up around 22% so far in 2019, slightly more than a 19% rise on Germany's DAX and an 18% gain on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.
Money flowing into the New York-traded iShares exchange traded fund (ETF) tracking stocks in the MSCI France index has pushed total net assets in that ETF to a record high of over $1.1 billion, up over 20% over one year, according to Refinitiv data. In contrast, the equivalent ETF for Germany is down 40% over one year at $2.0 billion.
There has also been some recent data pointing to the French economy faring better than Germany, with tax cuts having helped to offset a hit to the French economy at the end of 2018 from the anti-government "Yellow Vests" protests.