Below we show YTD returns in local currency for 75 equity markets around the world.  The average country is up 7.03% YTD with 65 countries posting gains and just 10 posting declines.

China was up the most in Q1 with a gain of 27.12%.  Greece ranked second at +20.70%, followed by Colombia (+17.19%), Italy (+16.83%), and Denmark (+14.92%).

Notably, all of the G7 countries rank in the top half in terms of YTD performance.  Italy, France, the US, and Canada are the top G7 countries, while Germany, Britain, and Japan are the bottom three.

Of the ten countries in the red this year, Oman and Sri Lanka are down the most at -8%.

Below is a snapshot of total returns across asset classes using key ETFs traded on US exchanges.  For each ETF, we show its total return over the last 12 months, year-to-date through Q1, and in March.

In the US, smallcap ETFs like IJR and IWM lagged badly in March, and they’re only up slightly over the last 12 months.  Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) was up nearly 4% in March and is up 13.2% over the last 12 months.

You’ll also notice that while most international equity market ETFs performed well in Q1, they’re still mostly down over the last year.  Germany (EWG) is down more than any other asset class over the one-year time frame.

Below is a snapshot of US sector ETFs from our Trend Analyzer tool.  The list is sorted by YTD performance from best to worst.  Tech (XLK) led the way in Q1 with a price change of 19.39%.  Real Estate (XLRE) ranked 2nd at +16.84%, followed closely by Industrials (XLI) at +16.49%.  Financials (XLF) and Health Care (XLV) were the biggest laggards in Q1, but even these two sectors still gained more than 6%.

Beauty company Coty (COTY) was the top performing S&P 500 stock in Q1 with a gain of 75%.  Chipotle (CMG) ranked second at +64.5%, followed by Xerox (XRX), Arista Networks (ANET), and Xilinx (XLNX).  Who would have guessed that two of the top five performers in Q1 would start with an “X”!

Other notable Q1 winners in the S&P 500 include Celgene (CELG), General Electric (GE), NVIDIA (NVDA), Netflix (NFLX), and Philip Morris International (PM).

In the broader Russell 3,000 which comprises more than 98% of listed market cap in the US, there were 29 stocks that gained more than 100% in the first quarter.  As shown below, Immune Design (IMDZ) was the top performer with a gain of 350%, followed by Diebold Nixdorf (DBD) at +344.58%.  Constellation Pharma (CNST) posted the third biggest Q1 gain at +237.91%, while Flotek Industries (FTK) and Spark Therapeutics (ONCE) round out the top five.  Other notables on the list of biggest Q1 winners include Insmed (INSM), Roku (ROKU), and YETI Holdings (YETI).

It’s no April Fools joke.  Finally, one of the major US index ETFs has re-entered a long-term uptrend according to our Trend Analyzer tool.  That index ETF is the Russell Mid Cap (IWR).  It is currently the second-best performer of the major index ETFs on a year to date basis with a gain of 16.47%.  Small and Mid-caps, in general, are coming off of a very strong push in the final week of March.  Each of these indices, except for the Micro-Cap ETF (IWC) and ironically IWR, all saw a gain of over 2.3% last week.  Meanwhile, large caps did not head out of Q1 with the same bang.  Last week, the Nasdaq (QQQ)—which has been and is still the most overbought ETF of the group—was only up 0.62%, and others like the S&P 100 (OEF) only rose 1%.  While large-caps underperformed last week, they’re still predominantly overbought.  Currently, eight of the major index ETFs are overbought, each being a large cap index.  The lone large-cap that’s not overbought is the Dow (DIA) which joins the remaining six ETFs at neutral.  Similarly, IWR is the only small to mid cap that is overbought.

Taking a look at the charts of these ETFs, the trends are a bit more evident. IWR’s uptrend comes as it is the only ETF to have distinctively broken above resistance set in Q4 2018.  Still, like the other indices, IWR has been range bound more recently, not continuing its charge higher from earlier in the year with price in recent weeks somewhat stalling out just above these resistance levels.

Please click the image below to view our April 2019 market calendar.  This calendar includes the S&P 500’s average percentage change and average intraday chart pattern for each trading day during the upcoming month.  It also includes market holidays and options expiration dates plus the dates of key economic indicator releases.

Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.

While you’re here, join Bespoke Premium for 3 months for just $95 with our 2019 Annual Outlook special offer.

Extinction

The Day The Dinosaurs Died by Douglas Preston (The New Yorker)

A little-known PhD candidate has found a remarkable fossil bed in the Dakotas, yielding evidence of what happened on the literal day that an asteroid buried itself into the Earth’s crust just north of the modern Yucatan peninsula. [Link]

The Worst Disease Ever Recorded by Ed Yong (The Atlantic)

The world’s deadliest disease is found among amphibians: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis eats away the skin of frogs and gives them heart attacks, devouring hundreds of species. [Link]

Kids

At $50,000 a Year, the Road to Yale Starts at Age 5 by Suzanne Woolley and Katya Kazakina (Bloomberg)

A look inside the extreme competition for spots in schools that promise a path into elite colleges within the New York City private education system. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]

Experts warn of rapid rise in ‘Tommy John’ surgeries among child athletes by Cristina Corbin (Fox News)

60% of surgeries designed to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in patients’ elbows are found among teenagers, with over-use of the body in high pressure, year-round competitive sports programs to blame. [Link; auto-playing video]

ACA

Health Insurance Exchanges 2019 Open Enrollment Report (CMS)

This week the agency responsible for management of health care exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act reported 2019 enrollment was down about 3.4% (amidst an effort to reduce enrolment by suppressing outreach efforts) with premiums down about 2.5% pre-tax credit, and 2.3% lower after tax credit. Roughly 87% received assistance for premiums, versus 85% last year. [Link]

Justice Department now says courts should strike the entire ACA by Sam Baker (Axios)

The Trump Administration’s Justice Department is arguing in federal courts that the entire ACA should be struck down: not just the more limited pre-existing conditions coverage requirements that are roundly opposed by Republicans in general but the rest of the law as well, sparking a new threat to health care coverage expansion achieved during the Obama administration. [Link]

Industry Recaps

Battery Power’s Latest Plunge in Costs Threatens Coal, Gas (BloombergNEF)

A staggering review of the plunging cost of installation for industrial-scale power generation. Benchmark prices for lithium-ion battery storage has fallen 35% since the first half of 2018 while offshore wind prices are down 24%. [Link]

The State of Fashion 2019 (McKinsey & Company)

Interesting for investors, businesses, and consumers who focus on the world of fashion, this comprehensive review summarizes trends and economics across the industry. [Link; 108 page PDF]

Long Reads

Harry Kane Wants To Conquer The Premier League…Then The NFL by Bruce Schoenfeld (ESPN)

A profile of Tottenham’s Harry Kane – one of the highest-valued strikers in European soccer – and his fascination with the NFL. [Link]

The mobster in our midst by Zak Keefer (Indianapolis Star)

Where better to hide out from the mob (after putting one of their men, your own father, behind bars) than Indianapolis? The story of John Franzese Jr. and how he left the witness protection program to tell it. [Link]

Economics

Why Are Economists So Bad at Forecasting Recessions? by Simon Kennedy and Peter Coy (Bloomberg)

Using an annual decline in GDP as the benchmark, there have been 469 recessions around the world since 1988. IMF economists only successfully predicted 4 of those. [Link; soft paywall]

Independent but Not Indifferent: Partisan Bias in Monetary Policy at the Fed by Williams Robert Clark and Vincent Arel-Bundock (SSRN)

An empirical investigation of political bias at the Fed. The authors show evidence that interest rates decline before elections when Republicans control the White House, rise when Democrats do, are more responsive to inflation when Democrats are in power, and are more responsive to the output gap when Republicans are in power. [Link]

California

$1,000,000 home for sale highlights San Francisco’s wild real estate market by Aarthi Swaminathan (Yahoo! Finance)

Fixer-uppers in San Francisco are a bit different than the rest of the country. That’s why a tiny bungalow in the middle of the city is listed for $1mm. [Link]

Who keeps buying California’s scarce water? Saudi Arabia by Lauren Markham (The Guardian)

Relatively scarce water resources in California’s central valley are being used to grow fodder for cows in Saudi Arabia, part of a chain of agricultural investments made around the world to assure that Saudi Arabian livestock get their dinner. [Link]

Lodging

American consumers spent more on Airbnb than on Hilton last year by Rani Molla (Recode)

US revenues for AirBnB surpassed those of Hilton in 2018, accounting for 20% of the US lodging market as the company continues to expand. [Link]

Data

Oil Traders Are Now Watching Workers’ Phones to Spot Problems at Refineries by Aaron Clark (Bloomberg)

Using geolocation data from cell phones, researchers are able to track the number of phones – and therefore the number of outside workers – refineries, giving them an edge on estimating shutdown times. [Link]

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Have a great weekend!