THE United States market has left DBS Bank chief executive Piyush Gupta "quite confused". Stock markets and market talk suggest that the US will grow strongly, but data has not borne that out, he said.

"For the first time in a long time I'm actually quite confused about the US market," he told a group of private banking clients over lunch at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom yesterday.

US stock markets are at all-time highs, with the S&P 500 index near 2,000 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average near 17,000 points. They have been climbing for the last five years. Markets recently shrugged off a first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) contraction of 2.9 per cent, expecting better results in Q2.