The 2010s have been marked by one dominating theme for global equity investors, the consistent outperformance of U.S. stocks compared to just about all other countries. Just as the popularity of international investing took off in the late (pre-crash) 2000s, the alpha turned negative. Year after year, investors have given up on international investing as they have grown tired of subpar performance (as indicated by falling AUMs in single-country ETFs).
At face-value, the reasons for this overperformance are unclear. The U.S. has seen larger public debt buildup than most of its