The world may be entering its ‘sell America’ era

With economic alarm bells ringing in the Land of the Free, analysts voiced new fears this week that global investors could spike a glass bottle on America and yell “SCATTER!”—if they haven’t already.

Bird’s eye view: Markets regained some ground once President Trump announced a tariff pause, but key assets and indexes have still moved enough to fuel suspicions of a foreign retreat.

• American money is losing value: The US dollar’s exchange rate with European currency hit a three-year low yesterday at 88 cents on the euro. It’s seemingly because European investors are “repatriating capital to the eurozone,” an executive at the Swiss bank UBP said.
• US stocks underwent more whiplash this week than Miles Teller in that drumming movie. Amid volatility around tariff uncertainty, Bank of America’s chief strategist Michael Hartnett is telling traders to sell S&P 500 rallies before it plunges again.
• Demand for US bonds and other Treasury notes also largely fell this week, while German bonds gained ground as a potential safe-haven alternative.

Declining equities, Treasurys, and currency values demonstrate “a radical shift away from US assets,” a strategist with ING said yesterday.

It’s a stark vibe shift:

• Typically, almost $2 trillion pours into US businesses, banks, and markets from investors outside of the country every year, according to government data.
• The US receives 41% of all the money in the world that gets invested across national borders—doubling its share from the beginning of the pandemic, per Axios.
• Global investors also hold about 30% of US public debt. That’s up from 23% of the pile three decades ago.

Zoom out: It’s too soon to tell if the “sell America” risk, as analysts call it, is the beginning of a new global economic order or just a phase. But anxiety about the US economy is growing: Consumer sentiment plunged this month, and inflation expectations hit their highest level since 1981. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said yesterday that the country may already be in a recession.