You Think We Have It Bad Here?

While US equity investors probably felt left out of the global market's rally while it was going up, being spared the brunt of a global sell off should provide some consolation. As the chart below illustrates, besides Peru, the US market remains closer to its 2006 high than any of the international markets highlighted.

Our primary reason for the chart however, was not to try and make US investors feel less worse. We originally set out to see if there were any trends to this global sell off, i.e., did it originate in any area of the world or start in emerging markets and spread to developed markets or vice versa?

As the chart shows, we found little evidence to support any of these trends. No one area of the world peaked before any other part. On the emerging vs. developed world idea, one could argue that some emerging markets peaked well before the overall world, but emerging countries which have received the most attention during the rally (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) all peaked right in line with or after the rest of the world. Finally, with 22 of the 37 countries (59%) we looked at peaking within two days of the overall peak in the world market, we find little evidence to support any of these ideas.