After gains in four of the last five days, equity futures were indicated lower ahead of some key GDP and inflation data this morning. Along with lower equity futures, bond yields are also lower, and that is welcome news for the housing market where Mortgage applications fell over 5% last week after falling more than 10% in the week before that.

US stocks have led the way during the recent bull market, especially since the lows of October 2022. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has gained 42.2% since then, compared to 31.0% for the rest of the world (iShares MSCI ACWI ex US ETF, ACWX). However, most of this outperformance occurred after late October. As the chart below shows, both SPY and ACWX were performing similarly until then.

Year-to-date, only the Japan ETF (EWJ) has outperformed SPY, with a gain of nearly 8%. However, international markets have shown recent strength. While the S&P 500 gained 2.05% last week, ETFs for China, Germany, Italy, and France all outperformed it. Only India’s ETF declined.

Looking at all ten country ETFs, most are near or at 52-week highs, except China (MCHI). While they haven’t experienced the same rapid ascent as the US (bottom chart), they have still reached significant levels.

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