Stock Market’s Rally A Salute to Slow Growth

The markets staged a relief rally last week that reflects Wall Street's attitude about the overall economy. Simply put, investors are saying they can live with slow growth, so long as the U.S. can avoid a double-dip recession. Stocks leapt around the world last week like jets of water shooting out of a fountain that had been closed down for weeks. The major U.S. indexes rose 3%, the NASDAQ rose 4%, non-U.S. foreign big-caps rose 3.6% and small-caps rose 4.6%. Many of our plays on growth overseas rose even more: iShares MSCI Thailand Index Fund (NYSE: THD ) jumped 4.9% and iShares MSCI Chile Investable Market Index Fund (NYSE: ECH ) rose 4.4%, while iShares MSCI Singapore Index Fund (NYSE: EWS ) rose 3.2% and iShares MSCI Turkey Index Fund (NYSE: TUR ) rose 3.5%. Once again, as we have seen all year, the response in iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index ETF (NYSE: FXI ) was more muted, up 2.4%. Read on to see where the next turning point for the market will come...