Dr. David Costa of Robert Kennedy College on CNBC 23 June 2010 from Dr.David Costa on Vimeo.

- A recent study by Merrill Lynch confirms that the wealth of the millionaire investors rose 18.9% to 39 Trillions in 2009. Compared with the 32.8 Trillions of 2008 and 40.7 Trillions of the pre crisis level we can see that Millionaires returned to pre-crisis level.

- The faster growing regions are Asia Pacific (31%) but even North America rose a respectable 18%.;
Global wealth increased 11.5% last year to 111.5 Trillion (111.6 in 2007)

- Given the volatility it is good to invest in sectors where Europe is clearly a World leader and has a very important competitive position that cannot be easily compromised like Luxury. Barrier of entry in these markets is very hard making them very immune to most common competitive pressure and European companies are doing well (e.g. Volkswagen has to increase production for their Audi A8 - A1 model given the high demand, especially in Asia).

- Europe is THE place where most of the luxury brands, from watchmaking to fashion are concentrated. These century old house of brands will benefit greatly from lower Euro thanks to exports in Asia, Middle East and North America;

- "The European Gloom" virus is good news for investors looking to buy brands that will probably be around much longer than any temporary crisis and have still acceptable valuations.

Summary: A good strategic play in Europe is to invest in European luxury companies with good valuations and high brand recognition / exports in Asia and fastest growing regions. As it is not always easy to pick the right brands investing through a specialised fund is a sensible option.