Six weeks into the new year, a slew of Wall Street calls for 2020 are misfiring as American assets once again prove to be a port in the global storm.
Both haven and risk-on strategies are surging in the world’s largest economy, hurting traders who came into this year betting on foreign markets over U.S. exceptionalism.
A decent earnings season for the tech giants, fears over the coronavirus spreading across Asia and strong economic data have all combined to trigger outperformance.
The S&P 500 is posting multiple records as the mega caps soar. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is trading near the highest since November while emerging markets crater. Treasuries are in huge demand as a global safety play.
It’s all reinforcing the relentless “America First” bull market -- and making life harder for money managers going overweight on bets overseas.
“Goldilocks continues,” Torsten Slok, chief economist for Deutsche Bank AG, wrote in a note. “The U.S. economic outlook has never been more stable than it is at the moment.”
Coming into this year, a collection of Wall Street outlooks envisaged scenarios buttressing overseas assets from Europe to emerging markets, driven by a synchronized uptick in global growth and attractive relative valuations.
But the land of equities underscores the relentless vigor of Made-in-America strategies. While the MSCI All-Country World Index is nearing a record, this is in large part driven by U.S. equities trading at all-time highs.
The S&P 500 gained 3.8% this year through Monday, but the all-country index without American stocks was down 1.1%. Even the Stoxx Europe 600 index, notching records of its own, has lagged the S&P 500 by more than 1.6 percentage points this year through Monday.
In credit, the year started with plenty of talk about the need for caution after 2019’s rally left U.S. corporate bonds looking expensive.