Global Macro Monitor

Maybe President Trump should not read this but last year was all about “Making The World Great Again.”

Financial Markets
As the data and graphs illustrate below, the U.S. stock market was in the bottom quintile of performance in dollar terms. The ETF table does not include the Argentina country ETF, which was up over 53 percent in 2017.

Some of the rest or world’s outperformance was due to dollar weakness, which fell against the euro by almost 15 percent and was down against almost all G20 currencies, ex/ Argentina and Turkey, which experienced significant drops due to inflation differentials. The dollar had small gains versus Brazil and Indonesia.

Economy
Furthermore, the rest of the world’s major economies also exceeded expectations. U.S GDP growth was third among  G7 countries,  trailing Canada and Germany.

The U.S. economy just met expectations, however, whereas other G7 economies significantly outperformed expectations. The U.S. recovery is much more mature than most of the G7, which may explain the positive economic surprises.

Upshot
Hey, but we ain’t complaining. The U.S. markets and economy had a banner year. Hats off to those lifting the heavy lumber (up over 40 percent in 2017, BTW) to make it happen. However, keep it in a global perspective, comrades!

Let’s see what 2018 brings.

After 30 years in the markets, we have learned it usually pays to expect the unexpected. Good luck this year!