Thanks to the recent rally, you may be feeling pretty good about yourself. After all, as of Thursday's close, every Dow member was up in value since March 9. In fact, the worst performers are Wal-Mart Stores , ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), and McDonald's , which were still up 9%, 6%, and 6%, respectively. Even Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), which had disappointing earnings last week, is up nearly 20% over that time frame.

If you're new to the market, you may be thinking that this stock-picking stuff is easy money.

It's not -- and this recent rally cannot continue. It's not in the nature of U.S. large caps to offer such steady, significant returns. This market is seriously out of whack.

That makes no sense
There's more evidence that the U.S. market has gotten ahead of itself, of course. Wal-Mart recently decided to stop publishing monthly sales statistics, hoping it will encourage investors to take a long-term view.

Of course, it was more than happy to publish these stats when they were good, so this action would seem to indicate that it expects them to get worse. And if U.S. consumers aren't shopping at a discount store like Wal-Mart, then where are they shopping?

Further, unemployment, though recently improved, still hovers close to 10%.

You may say, "Yeah, but the market is forward-looking." Sure it is, but it's not that forward-looking. Tack on the inflation that's likely to result from rampant deficit spending and, well, tread carefully in U.S. stocks.

What you can do
It's for these reasons that we continue to look outside the U.S. for compelling stock ideas at Motley Fool Global Gains, and why we're particularly excited about the opportunities in China, Brazil, India, Chile, and Peru.

Stocks in these countries today offer better valuations relative to their future growth prospects -- and many have been left behind by the recent rally. And the advantages over the U.S. aren't necessarily the same from country to country.

India has a younger workforce; Chile a large budget surplus and abundant natural resources; China a massive population with significant personal savings; Brazil and Peru growing resource economies that are developing stronger and stronger ties with China. Thus, these countries can hold up to some degree even as the U.S. falters, though complete decoupling is unlikely.

China's tiny Yanglin Soybean , for example, is actually down almost 40% since March 9 and now trades for a paltry 0.2 times revenue and 4.3 times EBITDA. Yet this is a company that pays no taxes to the Chinese government, since it's been classified as a Key Leading Enterprise in Agriculture and is helping that country achieve its strategic goal of becoming food independent. Continued...