U.S. Stocks Off to Their Worst Start vs. Global Market Since 1995

The U.S. stock market, typically considered the engine of the global economy, has struggled to find its footing in the first months of 2026, even as the rest of the world has surged ahead, Jake Conley reported for Yahoo Finance.

 Investor attention has shifted toward international markets.

As a result, U.S. stocks are off to their worst start to a year since 1995 compared with the global market, according to data from Goldman Sachs.

While the S&P 500 (^GSPC), which tracks the largest U.S. companies, has fallen 1% since the start of the year, an index tracking returns across the rest of the global economy has gained 8%.

The trend also holds over the past year: the ex-U.S. index has risen 30%, triple the 10% return posted by U.S. stocks over the same period.

In an environment where geopolitical risk increasingly originates within the U.S. — whether from the Trump administration’s tariff regime, comments about the annexation of Greenland, or other moves — investor attention has shifted toward international markets.

“For global investors, the repricing of [the U.S. dollar] and the erosion of the spread between the U.S.’s [equity risk premium] and others was brutal” in 2025, Viktor Shvets, head of global desk strategy at Macquarie, wrote in a recent client note.