US stocks continue to underperform in 2025, hurt by a weaker dollar and trade tensions over the Trump administration’s tariffs.
In contrast, several global stock markets – from Hong Kong to Europe – are booming, according to an analysis by visualcapitalist.com, which notes that while political support in China is boosting returns, massive defense spending is contributing to gains in German and Italian stock indexes.
The cited source presents a ranking of global stock returns since the beginning of this year, based on figures provided by TradingView, and according to them, on June 13, the Hang Seng index of the Hong Kong market recorded a return of 19.3% – the strongest on the world’s main stock markets, powered by the technology sector. Thus, while the market in mainland China has a slow dynamics, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is growing, boosted by investor optimism around the artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, according to the mentioned source. In addition, the international press writes that the retail giant Shein is considering launching its initial public offering (IPO) on a market other than London, namely Hong Kong, where the battery manufacturer CATL also raised over 4 billion dollars through an IPO in May. With US markets posting weak returns, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is positioned as the world’s top IPO destination in 2025.
In second place in the top 100 stock returns in 2025 is Germany’s DAX 40 index, which rose 18.1%, supported by a euro500 billion infrastructure fund. In addition, in Europe’s largest economy, falling inflation, coupled with a strong euro, provides favorable conditions for interest rate cuts. Like the German market, the main Italian stock exchange index has posted strong gains this year, of 15.4%, which places it in third place in the returns ranking, according to the cited source.
In fourth place are stocks included in the MSCI Emerging Markets index (excluding China), which generated a return of 10.5%, and in fifth place – those in the London market index, FTSE 100, with 8.3%. Next are the STOXX Europe 600 (Europe, +7.5%), TSX Composite (Canada, +7.2%), Swiss Market Index (Switzerland, +4.7%), CAC 40 (France, +4.1%), Nasdaq-100 (USA, +3%).
With year-to-date returns of over 7%, Canadian stocks remain resilient despite the economy’s vulnerability to global trade tensions. This dynamic in the Canadian market is likely due to its defensive sector mix, attractive valuations and the fading, over time, of fears caused by tariff tensions.
According to the figures above, US markets lagged in 2025, although there are some outstanding performing stocks. For example, Palantir Technologies Inc., a company specializing in software platforms for analyzing big data, leads the S&P 500 index, with a return of 82% year to date, while NRG Energy and Howmet Aerospace are each up more than 50%, driven by momentum in the artificial intelligence and defense industries. Overall, the S&P 500 index has gained only 1.6% this year, due to trade uncertainties.
After the S&P 500, the ranking of returns looks like this: SSE Composite (Mainland China, +0.6%), Nikkei 225 (Japan, -4%), Russell 2000 (U.S., -5.8%).