“Sell America” Fears Don’t Square With Data

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Are investors ditching US assets in droves? Recent headlines might convince you as much, touting the so-called “Sell America” narrative. Supposedly, investors—especially overseas—are souring on the US. But hold on. Data tell a different story, suggesting demand for US stocks and bonds remains fine. While we expect US stocks to lag non-US in 2026, these “Sell America” fears carry things too far—and amount to another brick in stocks’ wall of worry.

“Sell America” simmered throughout much of 2025, but it perked up most late last year and into early 2026. It erupted from fears around the Trump administration’s igniting a trade war with tariffs, weaponizing the dollar and threatening Fed independence, with a side of Greenland chatter and worries about the shifting international order. Proponents suggest these factors add fresh risks to US assets, so investors—both at home and abroad—are selling and diversifying away.

Much of this narrative hinges on the US dollar, which fell -9.4% versus a basket of major currencies in 2025 and is currently down -0.6% year to date.^[i] This, plus gold’s rise and reports of “Sell America” chatter at investor conferences, purportedly “proves” investors are ditching America. We think that talk far exceeds reality, so let us walk through some data.

Take US bond markets. One way to gauge demand for US Treasurys (or any government’s debt) is the bid-to-cover ratio at auction, or the dollar value of bids to the face value of debt sold. At Tuesday’s auction, 10-year Treasurys fetched a bid-to-cover of 2.39.^[ii] While this is down slightly from November and December’s sales, it is just off the 6-month moving average of 2.53 and 2.54 average over the past 10 years.^[iii] If Treasury demand were really sinking, we would expect Tuesday’s bid-to-cover to be much, much lower. A tick below average doesn’t seem to indicate much flight.

Also illustrating this: Treasury yields. They can hint at demand. Yields move opposite prices, so if investors were fleeing Treasurys, the price would likely fall from their eagerness to exit—sending yields skyrocketing. They aren’t. 10-year yields are down from a year ago by 46 basis points (0.46 percentage point), landing them below most of 2025’s levels—even those immediately following Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement, a major catalyst for “Sell America” fears.^[iv]

Meanwhile, 5- and 7-year yields are down by a similar amount over the past year.^[v] Longer-term 30-year Treasury yields are basically flat, down 7 basis points.^[vi] While all are up from pandemic lows and those seen in the low-rate 2010s, they aren’t high by historical standards. There just isn’t much evidence people are rushing to offload US government debt.

Or look internationally by reviewing credit spreads—the difference in yield between two issuers at comparable maturities. US 10-year credit spreads versus Australia, Germany and France have fallen somewhat—US yields are down versus those nations’.^[vii] Credit spreads versus Canada are little changed.^[viii] US yields have climbed against only UK debt.^[ix] Is that “Sell America?” Seems like a stretch.

You can perform a similar analysis on corporate debt to see if investors are broadly selling US companies’ bonds. Yet as we covered last month, this spread is quite low by historical standards. Since our article, the spread has widened … by 3 basis points—nothing near a spike.^[x]

Stocks aren’t pointing to a US fire sale, either. Start with the S&P 500, which is roughly flat year to date and slightly positive since “Sell America” crept into the zeitgeist last November.^[xi] Flat to slightly positive returns don’t signal a major selloff. And while US stocks lagged non-US last year, they still rose 17.9%.^[xii] Again, that doesn’t look like a vast “Sell America” push. According to Investment Company Institute data, investors were net sellers of US domestic equity mutual funds and ETFs last year, liquidating a net $340 billion in fund holdings. Is that “Sell America?” Well, through February 13, investors are net buyers this year—as the narrative heated up!

Oh, and those dollar fears? They lack context. While the dollar is down against other major currencies recently, it is still right around its 40-year arithmetic average and parallels movement from Trump’s first term.^[xiii] As evidence, this is pretty weak sauce.

When you dig into the data, “Sell America” looks a lot less real and a lot more like an overblown, perhaps politicized, narrative. There just isn’t much evidence across an array of assets that people are broadly selling Uncle Sam.