Title: Haymaker Daily — Has the Sun Already Set on American Market Exceptionalism? Show: Haymaker (Substack) Author: David Hay / The Haymaker Team Date: 2026-09-02 (SEP 02, 2026) URL: https://haymaker.substack.com/p/haymaker-daily-6d3 Note: Written post — no timestamps; text verbatim from the paid post (captured via Stephen's logged-in session). Three images accompany the post: a manager-performance table (@AskLivermore on X, relayed by Trader Ferg), a Minack Advisors chart of MSCI US vs MSCI All Country ex-US, and a BofA chart of tech-fund inflows — the table is transcribed below, the two charts are noted as placeholders. Disclosures omitted.
Hello, Haymakers:
The S&P 500 is up roughly 12 1/2% this year on a total return basis. Moreover, this year's advance has been broader than in the past. The equally weighted S&P index is actually slightly ahead of that most respectable number.
Despite this generally inclusive rally, a number of high-profile money managers have been materially lagging the S&P in 2025. Of course, the following list is a small sampling of celebrity investors but it is interesting that both growth- (Cathie Wood) and value-oriented investors (David Einhorn and Bill Ackman) are lagging. Additionally, the late-in-life dog rescuer, Carl Icahn, apparently has a number of canines in his portfolio. (This table was relayed to Team Haymaker by our Kiwi friend Trader Ferg, a stock-picking legend in the making, in our view.)
[Table image — "How Are the Legends Doing in 2026?" — YTD performance of publicly traded fund managers vs the S&P 500. As of August 28, 2026. @AskLivermore on X.
Manager | Fund / vehicle | 2026 YTD | vs S&P 500 S&P 500 | SPY | +12.6% | — David Einhorn | Greenlight Capital Re (GLRE) | +8.5% | -4.1% Cathie Wood | ARK Innovation (ARKK) | +8.0% | -4.6% Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) | +1.6% | -11.0% Bill Ackman | Pershing Square (PSH) | -0.8% | -13.4% Carl Icahn | Icahn Enterprises (IEP) | -9.4% | -22.0% Michael Saylor | MicroStrategy (MSTR) | -19.0% | -31.6%
Footnote: Returns based on publicly traded stock/unit prices as of Aug 28, 2026. BRK.B and GLRE trade on NYSE. PSH trades on Euronext Amsterdam. IEP trades on Nasdaq. MSTR trades on Nasdaq. Fund NAV returns may differ from stock price returns due to discounts/premiums. Pershing Square NAV return was -7.1% as of Aug 18 per official weekly report. S&P 500 return based on SPY ETF.]
Gerard Minack, our great mate from Down Under, recently ran this interesting chart revealing that the U.S. market itself has been lagging overseas indexes since the start of 2025. As regular Haymaker readers know, we have been bullish on international markets in recent years.
[Minack Advisors chart — "US equity underperforms since early 2025": MSCI US vs MSCI All Country ex-US total return indices, indexed to 2010 = 100, Jul 2022 through 2026, with the ChatGPT release marked in early 2023. The ratio peaks around 325 in early 2025 and falls back toward ~270 by mid-2026. Source: MSCI; Minack Advisors.]
Considering the mammoth inflows into U.S. equities due to the AI boom/mania, and the related proliferation of trillion-dollar-plus market caps in the S&P, this is surprising. What isn't surprising is that tech has been the main destination for both on- and off-shore investors. (Hat tip to BoA's Michael Hartnett for the following chart.)
[BofA chart — "Chart 10: Inflows to tech funds on pace for record year": annual cumulative tech fund flows, $bn, by calendar year 2015 through 2026. Every prior year tops out below ~$80bn; 2026 is a near-vertical red line annotated "$216bn 2026*" (YTD annualized). Source: BofA Global Investment Strategy, EPFR.]
Accordingly, it's reasonable to assume that already underperforming U.S. shares will trail overseas markets to an even greater extent should — we'd argue, when — these epic inflows shift into outflows. This has the very real potential to place significant downward pressure on the fully invested U.S. index funds which are also highly concentrated in AI-related shares.
Reflecting this intense crowding into domestic tech, American investors remain dramatically underweight foreign markets. Few seem to realize the long-overdue rotation into international equities is well underway. Haymaker readers should be aware we have a long list of what we believe are attractive overseas stocks populating our coverage universe.
The Haymaker Team