The best way to bet against Europe in 2012

Shorting the euro is an obvious trade this year. But it's not the best way to play the continent's continuing debt crisis. John Stepek explains why, and picks an alternative play on Europe's weakness.

It's the most obvious trade for 2012.

The euro has to weaken. If Europeans succumb to money-printing, the single currency will fall. That's what quantitative easing (QE) did to both the dollar and to the pound. So why would it be different for the euro?

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.