Why I'm not losing sleep as the U.S. stock market underperforms the rest of the world 🌎

Underperformance doesn't mean weak returns 📊

After years of outperforming the rest of the world, the U.S. stock market has been underperforming in 2025.

“Impressive as YTD U.S. equity returns are, many international equity markets have outpaced the U.S. this year,” Benedek Vörös of S&P Dow Jones Indices wrote on Thursday. “The S&P World ex-U.S. Index is up 22%, and with rich grounds for single stock picking: 71% of non-U.S. stocks in that index are currently beating the U.S. segment of the World benchmark.“

The S&P 500 has been underperforming the rest of the world. (Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices)

Bespoke Investment Group analysts compiled the performance of various country stock market ETFs since President Trump’s inauguration on January 20 and the April 8 low, when markets were grappling with his introduction of sweeping tariffs. The U.S. has been a laggard on both counts.

Most countries’ stock markets have outperformed the U.S. (Source: Bespoke)

This development might bother people like me who are overweight U.S. equities through S&P 500 index funds.

But I’m not losing sleep over this for a couple of reasons.