The Globe and Mail

For a few brief moments last week, the news coming out of Europe on the debt and economic fronts wasn’t all dreadful.

Spain and Italy managed to peddle a combined €22-billion worth of bonds at lower rates than they had been forced to pay just weeks ago. And European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi sketched a marginally-less depressing picture of the slumping euro-zone economy: “According to some recent survey indicators, there are tentative signs of stabilization in activity at low levels,” Mr. Draghi intoned. That, it seems, was enough for the ECB to stop cutting interest rates.

But just in case some deluded souls were tempted to think the flood of woe might have crested, along came Standard & Poor’s on Friday to strip France and Austria of their triple-A credit rating, among other euro area cuts. News of the impending downgrades and a decision by Greece’s creditor banks to break off floundering debt-restructuring talks had the usual impact on jittery markets around the world.

As the latest bulletins from euroland flashed on one of the several screens on his crowded desk, Bay Street veteran David Prince sipped cappuccino and talked about how much his business has changed over the years. “Never did I think in my investment career that I was going to be fixated on Europe, China, Japan and North America simultaneously. But the reality is that globalization has changed how we view investments and how we look for investment opportunities.”

And that, in turn, has led to what Mr. Prince describes as an inordinate focus on every bad news blip, a process fed by the celebrity permabear analysts who rarely encounter a positive development they can’t discount.

“Negative headlines from Europe keep swarming the markets and cap any New Year equity enthusiasm,” the principal of Harbinger Capital Markets Research wrote in his latest weekly analysis, which offers market insights and trading strategies to institutional and other investors searching for “a different view from what is being preached on the Street.”

Mr. Prince, who has been in the game for four decades, argues that even in this globalized age, it’s often better from an investing standpoint to stick closer to home. “Had you simply focused [in 2011] on good themes at a corporate level, you would have made a number of very good picks in the Canadian market.”

There is more money to be made this year, and not just in the three areas investors are always told they must own in Canada – energy, mining and financials. He notes that such diverse, non-resource hits of 2011 as Lululemon LLL-T, Westport Innovations WPT-T, Tim Hortons THI-Tand Dollarama DOL-Tstill have room to run.

Investing legend Warren Buffett once declared with some exaggeration that he never paid any attention to the various economic twists and turns and didn't care whether the gross domestic product or jobless rate rose or fell in any given month. Basing investment decisions on data often destined to be revised later meant being governed by emotion and following the market herd.

And if that’s the case, imagine trying to make sound bets based on the actions or inactions of late-to-the-party rating agencies, dithering eurocrats and politicians worried about their career prospects. What’s worse, the euro zone crisis is masking what Mr. Prince regards as positive economic developments in the U.S. and Asian markets.

“I think 2012 is going to have the same type of attitude,” says Mr. Prince. “Don’t get so mesmerized by big macro issues. Spend more time on micro issues, because you’ll find companies will either be taken out, merged or have terrific returns for you again.”