After a torrid start to the year, investors are starting to question the strength in the longevity of the European stock market.

We've had a bull run for several years now, but things are starting to look a little difficult.

To join us to discuss this today, we have Barry Norris, head of the Argonaut absolute return funds.

Thanks for joining us, Barry. Pleasure.

Now so you were back in 2009, so bullish about the market, that you took out a billboard ad, advertising how confident you were

Well, certainly in 2009 we felt it was a once-in-a-decade opportunity to invest in the asset class

That's been proven to be correct stop European stock markets have roughly doubled from that point,

but I think the main source of the return certainly since 2010 has been re-rating which is be very dependent on global liquidity.

But re-rating you mean sort of the price, the valuation which investors are prepared to put on stocks has gone up a lot rather than the underlying earnings.

Absolutely, so back in 2009, you can see the global economy was bottomed out.

Corporate profit margins were very very low and as a result we saw market earnings rebound by about 40 percent in 2010.

And we can see this in the chart here. Absolutely. So the blue columns show the valuation of the market; the red line we've got running across which has been flat for a long time.

That shows expectations for earnings in the year ahead at any moments. Absolutely.

And the evaluation is that green line. So what happens?

So 2010 40 percent rebounding in market earnings of the sea

regaining some of the aggregate level in 2007 before the down

but since 2010 we've seen the flat-lining corporate earnings in Europe, the mix has changed

So in the last two or three years we've seen the recovery in domestic Europe whilst those geared towards emerging markets commodities are seen a fall off earnings.

Nevertheless markets earnings as a whole flat-lining really for the last five years.

So we had a recovering stock prices but not really the underlying profits by the company. Absolutely.

Valuations have gone up but corporate profits haven't.

And certainly as an equity investors that makes me a little bit uneasy, I would rather invest in the market where profits are growing rather than just valuation is becoming more expensive.

And I think you've got another chart here, which shows sort of what type of investing has worked in the last few years.

Yeah absolutely so if we move to this graph here, which basically shows growth investing as an ideology versus value in that as an ideology.

So put crudely a growth manager will invest in high-quality companies, maybe they've got competitive advantages, strong balance sheet, good management etc.

A value manager will look for cheapness. Yes.

And so since the financial crisis, growth managers have significantly outperformed value managers.

We would argue that is because the market for corporate earnings has been so difficult.

The factors that growth managers always look for are high-quality companies, strong balance sheet, free cash flow high return on equity

have been rewarded more in this cycle down slightly in the previous cycle when they did very poorly

because it has been a such a difficult environment for corporate profits in general

and generally the more difficult the economic environment,

the more competitive advantage, and the more investing in high-quality companies is linked to the ability to generate profit growth.

So 7 years ago you were very bullish. Yeah.

Now is it a question that you just think value is going to come back into focus or are you negative on the outlook for the stock market as a whole.

I think the next six months at least they're gonna be very very tough.

This re-rating that we've seen equity has basically been correlated to bond yields coming down.

and it bond yields are no longer coming down because the liquidity is being withdrawn

then I think you won't get that re-rating in the equity market.

Thank you very much for joining us Barry.So it looks like a turbulent start to the year and some very difficult times lie ahead.