Invest Globally

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

— H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Author

For many of us, the smell of fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies brings back happy memories of childhood, coming home after school with friends or after playing catch in the yard. Often, the chocolate chips are Nestle Toll House. Chocolate chip cookies may be an American invention, but Nestle is actually a Swiss company — though their products have been sold in America and part of our everyday life for a very long time. Perhaps you bought your baking supplies at Trader Joe’s, which is owned by a German company. And baked them in an oven made by Korean-owned Samsung.

How does this relate to us as investors? It is important to realize that many of the companies that we buy products from on a daily basis are headquartered all over the world. We don’t limit our consumption to U.S. products, so why would we want to limit our investment portfolios to U.S. companies? Instead, it makes sense to invest in as many of the great companies of America and the rest of the world to maximize the potential of our portfolio.

We like to think of the U.S. as a world leader, but over the past several decades, America has never been the #1 market in the world in annualized performance. Nobody knows what the future will bring. But if you own a lot of companies around the world you can worry less if any one company or even one country experiences losses. Nor do you need to be concerned about picking countries that might outperform. Keep in mind that international stocks can be riskier than U.S. stocks, due to currency and political risks, among others. This is why it is so important for you to carefully decide how to allocate your portfolio between U.S. and international stocks.