Western Europe: Down Their Own Street

Analyzing a decline of 5% since January in values on the Brussels Stock Exchange, Executive Henri Carpentier gives the traditional explanation. "When New York is booming, we're stable. When New York is stable, we're doing bad. And when New York is doing bad, we're doing very bad. Therefore, we're doing very bad right now."

Carpentier's point of view was understandable—as far as Brussels is concerned. But fact is that values on most European bourses have fallen because of internal economic problems, moving independently and ahead of Wall Street.

Most European markets hit alltime highs in the period 1960-62; they have been slipping...