Investing in foreign stocks offer many advantages such as a wide universe of stocks to choose, higher dividend yields in some markets, different earnings growth rates and potential high growth opportunities, etc. The following infographic shows some of the beneits of going overseas:
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Source: Global Vision Enhances Equity Insight by Mark Phelps, Scott Krauthamer, Alliance Bernstein
The most innovative country in the world is neither a developed European country or the US. Based on a study by Ana Maria Santacreu at the St.Louis Fed, China leads the world in innovation based on the number of patent applications filed by year:
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Source: Chart of the Day: The Most Innovative Country in the World Is…, Canadian Investment Review
The chart below shows the annual returns of various asset classes like stocks, bonds, cash, etc. from 2003 thru 1H, 2017:
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Source: Novel Investor
Diversification is the simple and easy way to avoid major disasters and achieve one’s long-term goal in equity investment. The following chart vividly makes this point clear.At the height of the global financial crisis, the S&P 500 fell 37% in 2008 but the consumer staples index declined by only 15%. Similarly no index has been the consistent top performer year after year. So investors have to diversify their assets across sectors if holding individual stocks or ETFs or go with a S&P 500 ETF that gives exposure to all the sectors.
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Source: Novel Investor
Related ETFs:
Disclosure: No Positions
The following is an neat chart showing the growth of US National Debt, GDP and debt held by the public. Most of the outstanding debt is held by the American public and not Chinese as commonly misunderstood. So the theory that China can crash the US economy by simply dumping their US treasury holdings is simply false.
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Source: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Understand U.S. Debt by Brian Levitt Oppenheimer Funds