AUSTRIA
CABFor the third year running, CAIB Investment Bank occupies the top slot in Austria, narrowly beating domestic rival Erste Bank.
But for Austrian brokers it has hardly been a year to remember. Lukas Stipkovic, head of research for Austria at CAIB, pays no heed to the conspiracy theory that EU political sanctions have been the cause of the underperformance of the Austrian market.
"We have looked at this and there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that the political situation has had an effect on individual stocks. From a macro, top-down point of view, there has been no sign of a political impact," he says.
Indeed, the Austrian market has come into its own in recent months. "If you look at the performance of the market since the Neuer Markt, Nasdaq and the rest peaked, you can see that the Austrian market, which is obviously old economy driven, has outperformed the others," says Stipkovic. "The market has actually benefited from a rotation back into value rather than momentum or growth stocks."
Rather than the political situation, the problem for brokers in Austria is the lack of an established equity culture among domestic investors.