As Wall Street’s biggest investment banks urged clients to flee the US sharemarket last month, an army of retail investors in Australia did the opposite and are now emerging as the biggest winners from the violent rebound in the world’s most important sharemarket.

Global investors had been preparing for the end of so-called US exceptionalism since early April when US President Donald Trump shocked the world with punitive tariffs that sent investors fleeing Wall Street and rotating into perceived safe-haven assets, including Australian equities.