US stocks are outperforming most of the world
The supposed trigger for the crash in US stocks was worries about US wage inflation after non-farm payrolls. I don't like that explanation for a lot of reasons and think that nonsense in the VIX market was at least part of the story, along with the regular rush of lemmings.
In any case, Ryan Avent from The Economist makes a good point: US stocks are outperforming.
The S&P 500 is up 2.4% year today. Compare that to:
- Nikkei -4.6%
- Euro stoxx 550 -2.4%
- FTSE 100 -5.3%
Another part of the story is the currency. When you adjust for the dollar drop, global stocks are performing along the same lines, but the US is still out front.
At the end of the day there's not going to be any clear, easy or logical explanation for the stock drop so maybe it's time to move on.
