(Reuters) - U.S. stock
investors are finding the value of staying close to home.
Even
as the U.S. economy barely grew in early 2014, companies with a domestic
orientation have on balance delivered better first-quarter sales and profit
growth than their globally oriented peers.
RBC Capital
Markets found that sales growth among companies with a high percentage of their
revenue coming from the United States was three times stronger than those with
a bigger international sales mix. Earnings growth was six times as robust.
U.S.-focused names had bigger upside surprises on both the top and the bottom
lines.
"With
the U.S. economy vaulting energetically out of its winter cold spell but China
looking even more beset by gravitational forces ... the two-speed developed
market-vs-emerging market global recovery ... is growing more clear and present,"
analysts at Nomura wrote in a note to clients.
Companies
with U.S.-oriented revenue rank among the year's leading advancers in the
S&P 100 Index.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp, which gets
more than three-fourths of its revenue from the U.S. market, is up nearly 27
percent in 2014. In its latest quarter, the company's revenue grew 50.1
percent, representing an upside surprise of almost 50 percent compared with
expectations.
Utilities are
2014's runaway outperformers, with the S&P utilities index up
nearly 11 percent. Utilities also have some of the highest U.S. revenue
exposure. The stock of Exelon Corp is up 32.2 percent in 2014; in its latest
quarter, Exelon posted revenue growth of 17 percent, good for an upside
surprise of 28 percent relative to analysts' forecasts.
Power
sector-focused funds have attracted inflows of almost $2 billion in 2014,
according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper, though the sector is also favored as a
defensive or dividend play, offering an average yield of 3.7 percent.
Conversely,
technology companies have the highest percentage of foreign revenue exposure,
according to Standard & Poor's. The group, which has sold off recently on
concerns that valuations are stretched, has had outflows of $1.25 billion this
quarter, according to Lipper.
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