But despite a modest retreat in January, Australian coal has already slightly outpaced gold this year, up 30 percent, and American coal producers have had more impressive gains.
He finds that, over the past five years, America's productivity growth has only slightly outpaced that in the euro zone, at 1.8% and 1.5% respectively.
Sales at stores open more than a year in the United States were up 10percentt, rising for their sixth straight month and slightly outpacing analysts' expectations for a gain of less than 10percentt.
In each year, those returns only slightly outpaced the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, and a basket of stocks linked to the index typically carries less risk than investments in the more highflying world of hedge funds.
OVER all, value funds, which posted big gains in the first quarter, continued to rally but were slightly outpaced by growth funds for the first time since bear market conditions began at the end of March 2000.
These gains slightly outpaced price rise in West Texas Intermediate crude oil during the same period.
Shares are up 7% since then to $26.50, but thats only slightly outpacing the Nasdaq.
While supply has slightly outpaced demand since 1997, this trend has begun to turn around over the past three years.
Despite such "competition" local prices rose 17% in the next six years, slightly outpacing inflation during a period in which, elsewhere in telecom, prices plunged.
The Swiss stock market benchmark index closed down 3.0% on Tuesday, down to 7,517.41 points, slightly outpacing the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50′s 3.9% fall.
