March's Stock Market Rally Becoming a Global Affair

While financial stocks generate the sexy headlines, the March stock market rally has been about a lot more than Bank of America and Citigroup.

Oliver P. Quilla for CNBC.com New York Stock Exchange

The 10 percent rise in indexes over the past week, instead, has been highlighted by a wide-swath of buying that has spread beyond the shorelines of the United States and into a renewed belief in markets around the world.

Those bullish on the domestic market continuing a slow recovery are betting it will be led as much by international investments as it is by the bread-and-butter companies that traditionally slay the bears.

"The global buildout cannot stop, will not stop. The fact is that only 5 percent of the world's population lives in this country," said Jordan Kimmel, fund manager at Magnet Investing in Randolph, N.J. "It's not only the banks—it's way beyond the banks."

The global move has been backed up by exchange-traded funds that benefit when emerging markets grow.

The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index has gained about 17 percent and the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF is up more than 12 percent in March alone.

The international strategy fits a popular scenario: As the dollar rally starts to run out of steam ahead of massive government deficits, parts of the global trade will improve.

That sentiment has triggered optimism in commodities as well as various parts of the shipping and materials sectors that would benefit from a global buildout.

"We've seen a pretty direct inverse correlation between the dollar and the stock market recently," said Chip Hanlon, president of Delta Global Advisors in Huntington Beach, Calif. "If you become a little more bullish you might want to lean overseas. Over the last eight months or so foreign holdings have gotten crushed, doubly so because of dollar strength."

Prior to talk about adjusting accounting rules that have made it difficult for banks to price the distressed assets on their books, Hanlon had seen the market mired in a quagmire of myopic government policies and uncertainty about the future of the economy.

Since then, he said, there has been more clarity about the White House's approach and thus more confidence in the markets and benefits across the board in international markets and commodities, particularly gold.

"Folks might be surprised at how much liquidity washes into this economy (as a result of the accounting rule changes). The pump has been primed," Hanlon said. "I don't like the long-term fundamentals we're laying down with all this spending, but I think the bears could be in for a real bath. For some period of time we could get a real wash in liquidity and a burst of economic activity as a result."

CONTINUED : LITTLE CHANCE OF 'V'-TYPE RECOVERY

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