As US Rally Pauses, Global Stocks Enjoy Historic Outperformance

A year ago, investors were sure that a presidential win for Donald Trump would doom international stocks to underperform the US market due to his promises to ratchet up tariffs and cut taxes. A year later, they can’t get enough of global equities.

The first year of Trump’s second presidency has brought an unusual reversal to a long-running trend: Benchmarks in China, Europe and Canada have all outperformed the S&P 500 in dollar terms since his election victory a year ago.

MSCI Inc.’s gauge of global equities excluding the US is beating Wall Street this year by the widest margin ...