Buy America. Wait, let me try again: BUY AMERICA!

Boy oh boy, they were buying US equities in the wake of Donald Trump’s second coming.

US-stock focused ETFs and mutual funds took in almost $56 billion over the latest weekly reporting period, according to EPFR. That was very nearly the largest inflow of 2024.

As the figure shows, US shares have seen half a dozen consecutive weekly inflows, and nine in the past 10 weeks.

Do note: The post-election haul came on the heels of a $32.8 billion inflow the prior week. So, we’ve just witnessed a ~$90 billion buying spree. What can you say? US stocks: Grab ’em while they’re hot. When you’re suffering from acute FOMO, they let you do it.

BofA’s Michael Hartnett broke down responses to the bank’s November Fund Manager survey by those collected prior to the US election and those collected afterwards. The figure on the left, below, shows you the dramatic jump in the implied net share of respondents Overweight US stocks post-election (click to enlarge, as always).

The figure on the right shows that in responses collected in the lead-up to the election, 27% said US equities would be next year’s best-performing asset. That share jumped to 43% in the responses gathered on November 6 and 7.

Note that the post-election survey results revealed the second-highest reading for small-cap outperformance expectations in at least a decade. US small-caps saw a $6.7 billion inflow over the week, the largest in four months. US large caps, though, took in $44 billion, their biggest one-week inflow ever. Either way: Buy America.

But it wasn’t just US equities folks were buying on the Trump trade. They bought crypto too. As everyone’s by now fully apprised, Trump’s a born-again Bitcoin fan. In a bid to secure the crypto vote, such as it is, he promised to establish a strategic US Bitcoin reserve, an idea that seemed (and still does seem) ludicrously farcical until you realize that as President of the United States, Trump could (and surely would) do and say things to drive up the price of America’s crypto stash. Of course, that price is denominated in US dollars, which makes the whole thing weird, but that’s going to be America in general going forward: Weird.

There’s the chart. It likewise comes from BofA’s Hartnett. Crypto funds just took in $6 billion, a record, and by a country mile.

I guess you could argue that some of that buying is dollar-debasement fears based on “red sweep” fiscal concerns but… well, but who am I kidding? It’s buying based on Trump’s crypto cheerleading, Elon Musk’s crypto cheerleading and the prospect of a less onerous regulatory environment for what, let’s face it, is the private money business (which is supposed to be illegal). Gold funds, by contrast, saw their largest outflow in years following the election.

Not surprisingly, emerging market stocks saw outflows post-Trump victory. The $7.4 billion in redemptions was the largest single-week outflow of the year.

As the figure shows, EM-focused funds have now reversed $25 billion of the record haul witnessed during the buying frenzy in Chinese shares early last month, when Beijing attempted to placate nervous investors with stimulus promises.

The five-week outflow from China-dedicated equity products stands at $21 billion, the most for any rolling five-week period on record. Suffice to say that trade (the “buy all things China” trade touted by at least one big-name hedge fund manager) was nothing more than hot money chasing the “stimmy” unveil. Who could’ve known?