One reason I hear some investors are uninterested in buying foreign-listed stocks is that they believe the foreign revenues of some of their home-based companies already provide enough international diversification. The classic example is Coca-Cola, whose sales have spanned over 100 countries for years, so arguably Coca-cola is more like a “global portfolio” than a […]
2019 is a good year to start off with a country valuation dashboard, given how most of 2018 was a story of US stocks outperforming most other countries’ stock markets, at least until December. Despite last month’s correction, US stocks remain relatively expensive compared to most other countries’ markets, with the US S&P 500 still […]
Here is a table listing some of the best performing and worst performing country stock markets as of the beginning of December 2018, with the first two columns showing 2018 year-to-date and 3-year total returns by country respectively. The next two columns show Price/Earnings ratios and historical earnings growth statistics by country. I chose to […]
By assets, ETF investors largely seem to prefer to buy very broad market exposure at very low cost. When Vanguard launched their first China-only ETF earlier this year, I noted that US ETF investors have about 10x more allocated to Chinese stocks through the portion of broad emerging market ETFs allocated to China than through […]
Many Americans living outside the US have visited their local bank to be told that they are not allowed to purchase investment products outside the US, often without being told any more details as to why not. While Americans can and should directly own investments outside the US (I personally own and buy for US […]
Last month I posted a chart on how stock prices rose 7x more than house prices over the 20th century, which although backward looking, provides some idea of why investors should consider allocating as much of their wealth to stocks as to investment real estate. Here I expand the chart with data from the BIS […]
Investors looking to replace index ETFs or more expensive stock mutual funds or closed-end funds with direct positions in blue chip stocks may want to start by owning some of the largest companies in the world by market cap. Market cap is simply the total value of shares outstanding, and most index funds and ETFs […]