Commodities and foreign stocks led the performance run in January, based on a set of ETF proxies. Meanwhile, foreign assets, helped by a weaker support, outperformed their U.S. counterparts by a wide margin.
A wide range of commodities made its way up in January. Shares S&PG SCI Commodity Indexed Trust (NYSE: ) rose 10.5% last month, marking the fund’s strongest monthly performance in 2-1/2 years.
Foreign stocks were second and third in the January horse race. Developed market shares ex America () rose 6.0 percent, closely matched by stocks in emerging markets () which rose 5.0 percent.
U.S. stocks ( ) retreated by a wide margin, rising 1.6 percent in January. US bonds () managed to post only a slim 0.2% advance. In contrast, U.S. small-cap stocks delivered strong results, blowing away other pieces of the U.S. market with a brisk 5.7 percent gain, based on the iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF (NYSE: ).
Despite a wide array of performances in the 2026 kick-off, January was notable for gains across the board for major asset classes. In 2025, there were three months of rallies in all corners.
The Global Market Index (GMI) kicked off the year with a strong start, jumping 2.4 percent – its best monthly gain since September. With the latest surge, GMI extended its string of monthly gains to ten in a row, its longest winning streak in eight years. The GMI is an unregulated benchmark (maintained by CapitalSpectator.com) that weights all major asset classes (except cash) by market value through ETFs and represents a competitive benchmark for multi-asset class portfolios.