The Importance of Diversifying Your Portfolio with Overseas Investments
Summary: Discover the benefits of diversifying your management strategy with foreign assets and the importance of investing in overseas stocks and bonds.
Because different countries have different currencies, overseas travel is usually more complicated than domestic travel. Likewise, overseas investing is more complicated than domestic investing. However, just as foreign travel adds diversity to your travel experiences, so foreign assets add diversification to your portfolio.
With a gross domestic product (GDP) of over $20 trillion, the United States has, by far, the world’s largest economy. (China has the second-largest, with a GDP of $13 trillion.) Moreover, 54% of the world’s stocks and 39% of the world’s bonds are based in the U.S.
Correlations between U.S. and non–U.S. Stock Markets
Also, the correlations between the U.S. and non-U.S. stock markets have more than doubled over the last 25 years, meaning fewer benefits from diversification, as these markets now tend to move in tandem.
Therefore, it is understandable why individuals living in the world’s most dominant country prefer to invest here, given their allegiance to the so-called home team. This bias, however, may prevent individuals from realizing the benefits international stocks and bonds would provide to their portfolios.
Preference for Home Team
According to a 2014 study by Vanguard, the average investor’s portfolio contains 27% foreign stocks.[i] If the foreign stock percentage seems high, remember that the U.S. holds only half of the world’s total stock market value. This means that 50% of the world’s stock market value resides outside of the U.S.
A second 2014 Vanguard study, this one focusing on bonds, confirmed what I see in my practice: most U.S. investors have very little exposure to international bonds[ii]—even though 60% of all world bonds now reside outside of the U.S.[iii]
When individuals invest in overseas stocks or bonds, they rub up against the world’s largest market: the currency market. According to the Bank for International Settlements, foreign-exchange trading volume averages $6.6 trillion per day, while the entire U.S stock market trades about $191 billion per day.[iv]
Some investors hedge their currency risk by locking in times and prices at which they sell or purchase a currency. But hedging costs money. An investor must pay a fee to a counter-party—an institutional investor, corporation, government, bank, or currency speculator—for the right to buy currency from them or sell a currency.
Ways to Invest Overseas
Investors who enjoy owning individual stocks but want the added diversification of foreign stocks can incorporate American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) into their portfolios. ADRs are international stocks that U.S. investors purchase with dollars and from which they receive their dividends in dollars. However, currency changes affect the performance of ADRs.
More than 2,000 ADRs from more than 70 countries now trade in the U.S.,[v] including ADRs from such well-known international companies as Toyota, Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline, Deutsche Bank, and Sanofi.[vi]
There are many ways for individual investors to get exposure to foreign stocks or bonds—and, if you believe the Vanguard studies, the average investor has done an excellent job diversifying into international stocks. However, those same investors have not done the same with foreign bonds
Opinions of Financial Professionals
Of course, there is no such thing as an average investor, and everyone’s asset allocation and diversification depend on that individual’s specific goals and risk tolerance. However, most investors would benefit by having a percentage of their portfolio allocated to overseas stocks and bonds.
With 40% of the profits of the firms listed in the S&P 500 stock index now coming from overseas sales, some financial professionals believe that investors get plenty of diversification by owning stocks of U.S. multinationals. However, this theory fails to explain why bond investors have most of their portfolios in U.S. bonds.
These are the opinions of Financial Advisor Tim Hayes and not necessarily those of Cambridge Investment Research. They are for informational purposes only and should not be construed or acted upon as individualized investment advice. Content provided via links to third party sites should not be considered an endorsement of content, which we cannot verify completeness or accuracy of.
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Financial Advisor Tim Hayes
What Is My Financial Advisor Experience
I’ve held an industry securities registration for 30+ years and am subject to SEC and FINRA oversight.
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Most clients pay fee-only or an hourly rate. The size and complexity of the client’s wealth management and financial and retirement planning determine that fee.
Some clients pay a commission, mainly those with smaller accounts, i.e., Roth IRAs, some public-school teachers with 403b retirement accounts, or parents or grandparents who set up a 529 college savings plan.
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The first introductory and fact-finding appointment can be in-person or by phone. The next meeting where I provide my recommendations should be in-person. (For the time being, telephone, Zoom, and email are replacing some in-person meetings.)
Subsequent meetings during which we monitor your progress and investments can be done in-person or by phone, email, Zoom, or Skype – or, more likely, a combination of these meeting types.
Contact Tim
Tim has offices in Boston and South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. He’s licensed to handle securities in 8 states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, and Florida.
