Reasons To Include International Investments In Your Portfolio

The United States currently represents 60% of the global equity market.¹ This means investors with an extreme home bias are ignoring 40% of the equity universe. In truth, doing so over the last 14.5 years would have worked out for you, but markets are cyclical, so it’s unlikely this lasts forever. There’s also a long history of throne-swapping between U.S. and international stocks (see chart).

Particularly in today’s challenging market environment, investors should think twice before giving ex-U.S. assets the cold shoulder. The United States doesn’t always dominate the global equity market! When U.S. stocks are facing headwinds, international stocks may rise to the occasion. Sustained periods of outperformance by one region have been fairly common historically.

These bouts can be significant. For example, consider the ‘lost decade’ for U.S. stocks that started in the early 2000s. Between 2000 – 2009, the cumulative total return for the S&P 500 was negative 9.1% vs positive 30.7% for the MSCI All Country World Index ex U.S….Story continues…