Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Investors Beating U.S. Stock Market Can Be Simple

Stock-Markets / Stock Market 2017 Jul 29, 2017 - 03:39 PM GMT

By: Adam_ODell

Stock-Markets

Americans like to buy American stocks.

Europeans prefer European stocks.

And Chinese investors… well, you guessed it, they go heavily into Chinese stocks.

This is the essence of a phenomenon called home country bias.


As investors, we feel most comfortable buying the stocks of “our own” domestic companies. And we routinely under-allocate to foreign stocks.

That means U.S. investors are likely invested in…

Apple… not Samsung

Google… not Tencent

Amazon… not Alibaba

Intel… not the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company

Verizon… not America Movil

Coca-Cola… not Fomento Economico Mexicano

I’ll note that we recommended an investment in Fomento to our Boom & Bust subscribers. Generally, though, we know well U.S. investors’ preference for U.S. stocks.

Let’s be honest… it feels uncomfortable investing in a foreign company… and it’s worse when you can’t even pronounce its name! Right?!

But sticking too close to your home turf – in the name of comfort, or otherwise – could be costing you a lot of money.

Each of the foreign companies listed above are beating the pants off their U.S. counterparts so far this year.

Samsung is beating Apple (49% to 29%)

Tencent is beating Google (57% to 23%)

Alibaba is beating Amazon (75% to 36%)

Taiwan Semiconductors is beating Intel (24% to -6%)

America Movil is beating Verizon (36% to -21%)

Fomento Economico Mexican is beating Coca-Cola (35% to 7%)

So, what’s an American investor to do?

Two simple things…

The first step is to acknowledge there’s nothing “special” about U.S. stocks.

They aren’t pre-ordained to be the investment world’s best market all the time. Sometimes U.S. stocks outperform foreign stocks. Other times, it’s the other way around.

U.S. stocks will always feel more comfortable to U.S.-based investors. Reinforcing that preference, currently, is the fact that U.S. stocks have indeed outperformed foreign stocks for a long while now. From the March 2009 bottom through the end of 2016, the S&P 500 gained a massive 225% while emerging-market stocks were up just 82% and foreign developed markets just 46%.

But as I first warned in March, there’s no guarantee U.S. stocks will always outperform foreign stocks. The reality is that U.S. stocks are more likely to underperform aheadas they’ve done so far this year.

Once you acknowledge that there’s nothing special about U.S. stocks, you’re halfway toward finding lucrative opportunities all around the world.

The second step is simply figuring out the best way to invest in foreign stock markets. And, as I see it, that decision is a no-brainer…

You should invest in ETFs.

Look, finding the “next Apple” in China is no easy feat.

Frankly, most investors don’t have what it takes to be stock-pickers in their home markets, let alone foreign markets. So most ordinary folks are better served investing in a diversified basket of foreign stocks and calling it a day.

ETFs make that easy and cheap to do.

Take for instance the iShares MSCI Mexico ETF (NYSE: EWW).

Around 22% of this ETF’s assets are invested in America Movil, Verizon’s counterpart, and Fomento Economico Mexican, the “Mexican Coca-Cola” that we recommended to Boom & Bust subscribers – both up around 35% this year. But it’s also invested in roughly 60 other Mexican stocks, ranging from banks and cement companies, to airlines and real estate investment trusts.

This ETF gives you a simple way to “buy Mexico” – with one click of the mouse, and for a measly 48 basis points. So far this year, that’s been a good buy.

Mexico (EWW) is the top-performing stock market ETF among the 15 countries I track in Cycle 9 Alert and 10X Profits.

Shares of the ETF are up more than 31% year-to-date. That’s three-times better than the S&P 500 (SPY)!

Chinese stocks are also having a great year. And because it’s daunting to buy individual stocks out of China, the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSE: FXI) offers a diversified, low-cost, and simple way to gain access to China’s market.

Shares of the iShares China ETF are up 20% this year, nearly four-times the return we’ve seen from U.S. small-cap stocks so far.

The bottom line is, you’re missing a world of lucrative opportunities if you’re restricting your portfolio to U.S. investments only.

According to private equity firm KKR, China’s economy will account for a full 35% of global GDP growth in 2017. Emerging-markets outside of China will contribute an additional 41% of global growth.

Meanwhile, U.S. economic growth will be just 10% of the global pie this year.

That should make you think twice about loading up on U.S. names… and make you take a second look at global stock market ETFs, from China to Mexico and beyond.

Adam O’Dell
Editor, Project V
Follow me on Twitter ;@InvestWithAdam

Adam O’Dell

http://economyandmarkets.com

Copyright © 2017 Adam O’Dell - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in