| What's hot in the stock market right now? Unfortunately, it's not U.S. stocks. The S&P 500 is up just 4% year to date. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is only 3% higher this year. Why is that? Numerous reasons, really. Valuations of U.S. stocks got a bit stretched over the past two years - that is, they became very expensive relative to their earnings - as the S&P 500 soared 24% in 2023, and 23% in 2024. Those annual gains were more than double the 10% average annual gain that the Index has posted since it was created in 1957. The U.S. market soared higher in 2023-2024 mainly on the strength of large cap tech-related stocks like Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) and Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA). Nvidia surged more than 170% last year, as investors scrambled to obtain a stake in the exciting AI chip industry. Meta Platforms - which owns Facebook and Instagram, among other prominent social media properties - climbed 70%. But those stocks cooled off this year after becoming too expensive for many investors. And a few other mega cap stocks that drove the bull market in 2023-2024 are down this year - including Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), and Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA). And there's some evidence that global investors have lost a bit of their appetite for U.S. assets and are reallocating some of their funds to stocks of other developed countries. That's part of the reason the dollar is down 10% this year, as global demand for dollar-denominated assets - including both stocks and bonds - has wavered a bit. What's Hot? But there is a large class of stocks that's gaining steam this year, especially when compared to the lackluster performance of the U.S. market. I'm talking about international stocks, and in particular stocks of large cap and midcap companies in developed markets around the world - excluding the U.S. and Canada. | 
