Pedestrians carrying an American flag umbrella pass in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Things might look a little gloomy in the world's biggest economy, with slowing earnings growth and recession fears in the bond market, but stocks are still holding up just fine. That's probably because the rest of the world is doing much worse than the United States. With the unresolved trade dispute hurting China, which is already growing at its slowest pace since 1990, Brexit risk continually weighing on Europe and the U.K., and with new signs of weakness from Japan, the U.S. is standing out as the best game in town. "The U.S. economy has always been more self-contained than anybody else, compared to the major economies in Europe where trade is a much bigger part of the economy," said Scott Brown, Raymond James' chief economist. "The consumer really drives the bus in the U.S. and it's still a very positive story with job growth, wage increases and lower gasoline prices which adds to consumer purchasing power." Economists are expecting 2.4 percent GDP growth in the U.S. this year, the highest growth forecast among the Group of Seven countries where uncertainties continue to mount.

"In general, we see the US equity market as the place to go to search for fast-growing companies," Peter Oppenheimer, Goldman Sachs' chief global equity strategist, said in a note Monday. U.S. stocks continue to outperform their international peers. has gained more than 11 percent in 2019, while the iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF and iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF have posted only single-digit returns this year. Fitch Ratings "quite aggressively cut" its 2019 global forecast last week, citing a slowdown in China, Brexit and deceleration in emerging markets in the aftermath of the currency crises. Japan added to the heap of worries when the government downgraded its assessment of the economy for the first time in three years. The relative strength in the U.S. economy is helping sustain the rally in stocks after their epic rebound from a December bloodbath. Stocks were largely unfazed even after the Federal Reserve downgraded its economic forecast, reducing 2019 GDP outlook to 2.1 percent from a 2.3 percent forecast in December. "Now we see a situation where the European economy has slowed substantially and so has the Chinese economy, although the European economy more," Fed chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference Wednesday.

Midcycle?