
Andrew Garthwaite, a surveyor of these financial landscapes, has downgraded American equities to ‘benchmark’ – a polite term signifying a withdrawal of enthusiastic endorsement. He suggests, in essence, that the harvest here is thinning, and more fertile ground must be sought elsewhere. The data, thus far this year, lends a grim confirmation. While the American market falters, the MSCI World ex-US index, a measure of global returns, shows a modest, if insufficient, growth. It is a subtle divergence, a barely perceptible shift in the wind, but for those who understand the currents, it is a warning.