U.S. Stocks Eclipsed by Rest of World

[applegrove]

U.S. Stocks Eclipsed by Rest of World

December 29, 2025 at 9:49 am EST By Taegan Goddard 67 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/12/29/u-s-stocks-eclipsed-by-rest-of-world/

“U.S. stocks have been eclipsed by market gains in the rest of the world in 2025, as worries about high valuations, a Chinese artificial intelligence breakthrough and Donald Trump’s radical economic policies contributed to a rare year of underperformance for Wall Street,” the Financial Times reports.

“The S&P 500 was up 17 percent this year in early trading on Monday, undershooting the 29 percent gain for the MSCI All Country World ex-U.S. index by the widest margin since the global financial crisis in 2009.”

Applegrove: and 90 percent of US gains in stocks is AI speculation

[markodochartaigh]

1. So, if the US stock markets lag,

and the dollar falls, foreign investment in the US will still go up, right?

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Yes, international has been the place to be, except for AI

The rest of the domestic market has been see-sawing since July 1. Small secondary AI plays are flat or obliterated.

Emerging market large caps have been up nicely. Canada ETFs that trade in the US are few but up about 35%.

Hard to separate AI speculation from investments. I mean memory and chips and infrastructure will get paid. The AI part of the Mag-7 and their kin has been poorly explained. I understand what LLM's are doing, but why are Amazon and Alibaba buying tens of thousands of AI processors?