US equities are officially the laggards of the world.

The S&P 500 is underperforming just about every stock market around the globe this year.

After four months of steady underperformance, a growing list of international indexes are making new 52-week highs relative to the US.

While these ratios might be stretched over the short-term, when you zoom out, they are taking the shape of primary trend reversals.

All this tells us is to expect more leadership from international stocks in the future. I think we should get used to a global market of stocks that is no longer dominated by the United States.

And this is great news. Participation broadening around the world simply means more investment opportunities for us.

So I’m all about international these days. The first watchlist and chartbook I’m looking at most mornings is our international ETF universe. 

From the Desk of Steve Strazza @Sstrazza and Ricardo Sarraf @nullcharts

When investing in the stock market, we always want to approach it as "a market of stocks."

Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks showing leadership and trending higher.

We may have to look harder to identify them depending on current market conditions. But there are always stocks that are going up.

The same can be said for weak stocks. Regardless of the environment, there are always stocks that are going down, too. 

We already have multiple scans focusing on stocks making all-time highs, such as Hall of Famers, Minor Leaguers, and the 2 to 100 Club.

We filter these universes for stocks that are exhibiting the best momentum and relative strength characteristics. 

Clearly, we spend a lot of time identifying and writing about leading stocks every week, via...