I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

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tvubpwcisla
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I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by tvubpwcisla »

I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by jebmke »

I have no plans to change my equity. I am holding all of it forever.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
theorist
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by theorist »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I’m holding between 35 and 40% international as a fraction of total stock holdings. I have no particular faith that international will outperform US any time soon (certainly hasn’t in the recent past!), but I don’t want to take a bet on less diversification and accept the risk of investing in a single country — even one as economically strong as the US.
Da5id
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Da5id »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I was literally just thinking "If only there were a thread about international!" I've been waiting eagerly for such a thread to come along, but am always disappointed when they don't pop up.

Anyway, sure. I have international. 60% US/40% international. That is because I don't know the future. The US may have inherent advantages. If so, I assume they are well known and largely priced in. I'd rather be covered if the US underperforms for a long period. If the US continues its run of outperformance, welp I've got 60% US so I'm covered there too.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by RJC »

There are countless threads on this topic. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer as long as you are saving enough and have a stock/bond asset allocation that you can live with. Most folks on this board appear to have around 20-40% INTL.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Thesaints »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
Try to read books instead of watching videos. You may come to a different conclusion.
Would you be able to spell out your reasons for excluding close to half of the stock market, other than "Bogle made me do it" ?
By the way, "never" is an extremely long time and you know what they say: Given an infinite time, everything happens.
Last edited by Thesaints on Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by RJC »

Da5id wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:59 am
tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I was literally just thinking "If only there were a thread about international!" I've been waiting eagerly for such a thread to come along, but am always disappointed when they don't pop up.

Anyway, sure. I have international. 60% US/40% international. That is because I don't know the future. The US may have inherent advantages. If so, I assume they are well known and largely priced in. I'd rather be covered if the US underperforms for a long period. If the US continues its run of outperformance, welp I've got 60% US so I'm covered there too.
Here we go again. :beer
MarkBarb
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by MarkBarb »

I think Intl Stocks will probably return somewhat less than US Stocks in the medium term. I think that they also provide some level of diversification against US economic and US governance risk. To me, it is a trade-off between accepting less return for more diversification. I think the right value is somewhere between 0% and 100% international.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by atdharris »

I include them because I have no idea if/when they will outperform US markets again. However, I limit my exposure to 20% total spread throughout my accounts.
Da5id
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Da5id »

RJC wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:01 am
Da5id wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:59 am
tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I was literally just thinking "If only there were a thread about international!" I've been waiting eagerly for such a thread to come along, but am always disappointed when they don't pop up.

Anyway, sure. I have international. 60% US/40% international. That is because I don't know the future. The US may have inherent advantages. If so, I assume they are well known and largely priced in. I'd rather be covered if the US underperforms for a long period. If the US continues its run of outperformance, welp I've got 60% US so I'm covered there too.
Here we go again. :beer
Yep. Nothing is new under the sun in general, but in the case of international threads that more than ever the case. Rarely is new data or critical analysis advanced, alas. Bogle! Buffett! US > everywhere at any price!
Last edited by Da5id on Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
BalancedJCB19
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by BalancedJCB19 »

I agree 100%. In fact I have never owned international and at this point of my life I'm 57 I never will. In my two plus decades of investing there was a time when international did better, but that didn't matter to me because what Jack said really made sense. Make your decision and stick with it and don't chase performance. You will hear a lot of people not agreeing with Jack's stance on this and when he was alive he was well aware and always said he may very well be wrong. However, either way I reached my goals without international and you will too.

For the record, we are in very good company because Warren Buffett's investing advice for average folks excludes international also.

Good Luck!
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by z3r0c00l »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
This conversation has been covered ad nausea a few hundred times already, I suggest doing a forum search for this very question to see a ton of answers.

My thinking on the matter is quite simple, I am convinced (by Bogle and others) that the right move is to invest in the entire market rather than select only a portion of the market based on the hunch that it will do better than other parts of the market. For that reason I own international stocks because I simply can't decide which country will win out in the next 20-30 years.
70% Global Stocks / 30% Bonds
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by H-Town »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
so why posting this? So that I can tell you it's too bad? :twisted:
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Marseille07 »

I was checking my 401K holdings last night and it turned out my funds hold just about 1% international (I'm selecting the lowest ER S&P500-flavored funds). I guess that's the lowest I can make it.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

My thought is it is easy to imagine never regretting being 100% U.S. after a longish period in which U.S. has overall outperformed ex-U.S.

And more often than not, the people I encounter here making such claims also do not take seriously the possibility that ex-U.S. could outperform U.S. going forward for a significant length of time.

So, they are typically not imagining circumstances in which they would have cause for regret.

So, what will they actually feel, if what they are not imagining happens actually does happen?

We shall see, if it happens.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by EddyB »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
What country do you live in?
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Gort »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I don't have any thoughts about it. I just invest in one fund in my IRA and take what it gives: Life Strategy Moderate Growth (VSMGX). I can't control what the markets do so this is the ultimate hands-off portfolio for me. I might be right, I might be wrong. But if wrong, I won't be wrong enough to matter and I'll never regret that.
Last edited by Gort on Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Robot Monster »

NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:20 am My thought is it is easy to imagine never regretting being 100% U.S. after a longish period in which U.S. has overall outperformed ex-U.S.

And more often than not, the people I encounter here making such claims also do not take seriously the possibility that ex-U.S. could outperform U.S. going forward for a significant length of time.

So, they are typically not imagining circumstances in which they would have cause for regret.

So, what will they actually feel, if what they are not imagining happens actually does happen?

We shall see, if it happens.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Kenkat »

I think I would regret not having international funds in my portfolio someday so I have chosen to have them. I just don’t believe that the US market will outperform the rest of the world forever, especially since it has been for awhile now.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by anon_investor »

MarkBarb wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:03 am I think Intl Stocks will probably return somewhat less than US Stocks in the medium term. I think that they also provide some level of diversification against US economic and US governance risk. To me, it is a trade-off between accepting less return for more diversification. I think the right value is somewhere between 0% and 100% international.
I agree that it is a trade-off, and as long as someone going 100% US understands that trade off, I think 0% international is fine. Personally I have always been 100% US equities.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by JonnyDVM »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
“Never” is such a strong term. 60/40 here and still waiting for the international bull run. Putting in an order for emerging today coincidentally. Debating if I should buy the ex-China ETF or just stick with the standard Fidelity emerging index.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

anon_investor wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:30 am
MarkBarb wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:03 am I think Intl Stocks will probably return somewhat less than US Stocks in the medium term. I think that they also provide some level of diversification against US economic and US governance risk. To me, it is a trade-off between accepting less return for more diversification. I think the right value is somewhere between 0% and 100% international.
I agree that it is a trade-off, and as long as someone going 100% US understands that trade off, I think 0% international is fine. Personally I have always been 100% US equities.
Again, if you are imagining U.S. outperforms ex-U.S., that is not much of a stress test for a 100% U.S. strategy.

I'd be more comfortable with what is going to happen to 100% U.S. investors who said they expected U.S. stocks to underperform, but they preferred that strategy anyway.

I don't seem to encounter many such people, though. Most, if not all, are confident their strategy will lead to higher returns.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

Robot Monster wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:28 am
NiceUnparticularMan wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:20 am My thought is it is easy to imagine never regretting being 100% U.S. after a longish period in which U.S. has overall outperformed ex-U.S.

And more often than not, the people I encounter here making such claims also do not take seriously the possibility that ex-U.S. could outperform U.S. going forward for a significant length of time.

So, they are typically not imagining circumstances in which they would have cause for regret.

So, what will they actually feel, if what they are not imagining happens actually does happen?

We shall see, if it happens.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by esteen »

I hold ~25% of my equity allocation in international. It's because there are very convincing arguments for holding 0% international, and also very convincing arguments for holding the global market weight in international. And no one actually knows anything. So I split the difference.
MarkBarb wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:03 am I think the right value is somewhere between 0% and 100% international.
agree - a non-leveraged position would be optimal :wink:
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Normchad »

The thread title is horrible. You present zero evidence to explain or support your thesis that you will not live to regret it.

As for me, I’m always conflicted on this. I do hold international. I have a lot of VSMGX. Lately I would have been better off without it......

America is the biggest economy in the world. China will overtake it at some point soon. It is hubris to think that some of the best and most profitable companies in the world won’t be international. The next Amazon, Apple, GE, Citibank of the next 20 years may very well be international.

Then again, after China becomes the biggest economy in the world, the US will still be the 2nd biggest.... and investing in just that doesn’t seem that bad either.....
Last edited by Normchad on Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Somethingwitty92912 »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
Agreed.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Candor »

It's probably not a make or break decision either way. Cogent arguments can be made for either side but I think it's best to just stick with whatever decision you make and not to bounce around trying to chase performance.
Last edited by Candor on Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by starboi »

And there will never be a black swan, since we haven't seen one! :beer
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Escapevelocity »

Normchad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:37 am The thread title is horrible. You present zero evidence to e plain or support your thesis that you will not live to regret it.

As for me, I’m always conflicted on this. I do hold international. I have a lot of VSMGX. Lately I would have been better off without it......

America is the biggest economy in the world. China will overtake it at some point soon. It is hubris to think that some of the best and most profitable companies in the world won’t be international. The next Amazon, Apple, GE, Citibank of the next 20 years may very well be international.

Then again, after China be knew the biggest economy in the world, the US will still be the 2nd biggest.... and investing in just that doesn’t seem that bad either.....
I agree on the thread title. It would be better to say "I don't regret" rather than making an unsupportable claim about the future.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by goblue100 »

I hold enough international that I can say I have some. I wouldn't argue with anyone that doesn't want any.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Grt2bOutdoors »

BalancedJCB19 wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:05 am I agree 100%.

For the record, we are in very good company because Warren Buffett's investing advice for average folks excludes international also.

Good Luck!
Ironic - since Warren owns international on companies outright. I don’t recall him saying specifically to avoid international companies.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by surfslacker »

Normchad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:37 am The thread title is horrible.
Haha. I wasn't sure this was going to be a case FOR or AGAINST holding Intl. until I read his post. :P
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by RJC »

Does out-performance always happen many years at a time? Do we ever see flip-flopping back and forth?

I'm always hearing a "decade" of out-performance. Why is that?
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Call_Me_Op »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I include them and will continue to do so for diversification purposes.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by starboi »

RJC wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:55 am Does out-performance always happen many years at a time? Do we ever see flip-flopping back and forth?

I'm always hearing a "decade" of out-performance. Why is that?
Because people have ten fingers and are biased towards thinking in base 10.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by tibbitts »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
What have you concluded from reading the other thousand-or-so Boglehead threads on this topic?
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by NiceUnparticularMan »

Normchad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 11:37 am The thread title is horrible. You present zero evidence to explain or support your thesis that you will not live to regret it.

As for me, I’m always conflicted on this. I do hold international. I have a lot of VSMGX. Lately I would have been better off without it......
So to me, the basic underlying common theme in most Boglehead reasoning is it is perfectly fine to end up good enough, and not the best.

20 years from now, odds are either a 100% U.S. or 100% ex-U.S. portfolio will look best in hindsight. There is a small chance it is somewhere in between, but probably not. So, if I am committing to somewhere in between, I am very likely not to end up with the best portfolio.

And yet, we could just as well be talking stock sectors. It is extremely likely a "total U.S." portfolio will be outperformed by some sector-specific portfolio or another in 20 years.

Or just individual stocks. There will be individual stocks which outperform any given sector, or the total U.S. market.

The problem is the pursuit of the one best stock is very risky. As is the pursuit of the one best sector. So, even knowing that I will not have the best returns by doing this, I am fine with diversifying across stocks and across sectors.

To me, diversifying across countries is no different. I know I won't get the best returns that way--other people will do better than me. But, I just don't care about that, as I believe the pursuit of the best more often leads to doing worse, and the people who do better are just lucky.

So yeah, I am not expecting my portfolio mix to be the best. Nor will it be the worst. It will be somewhere in between, and hopefully good enough. And that is the same compromise I accept in many different ways.
Last edited by NiceUnparticularMan on Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by pokebowl »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
My thoughts is that this thread will exhaust itself by page 2 and be locked. :beer
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by goonie »

I'll never regret not saying that I'll never regret something.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by BrandonBogle »

theorist wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:59 am
tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 am I have decided to exclude international funds from my portfolio. I have watched a lot of videos about Mr. Bogle and he also excluded them and saw no reason to own any. What are your thoughts on either including or excluding international from your portfolio?
I’m holding between 35 and 40% international as a fraction of total stock holdings. I have no particular faith that international will outperform US any time soon (certainly hasn’t in the recent past!), but I don’t want to take a bet on less diversification and accept the risk of investing in a single country — even one as economically strong as the US.
This is essentially my thought, though I’m 25-30% of stock in Int. I do it for diversification and not return. I alternate between VG Total Int and VG ex-US, letting me Tax Loss Harvest. So at least I get a perk for the reduced return.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Hyperchicken »

Minimizing regret is a suboptimal metric for managing one's finances.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by nisiprius »

I continue to hold one of the most unorthodox opinions of all. I don't think it matters much.

Up to 2002 I didn't have any international stocks because I just hadn't though about it much. When I started reading more, I began to become aware that most mainstream advice said people should have some. 20% of stocks was a typical suggestion of the day. The reason I finally made the change was that I became aware that the dollar was weakening.

So I just did a rough reality check.

If I had stuck with 100% US, my portfolio would have about 2% more than it does today. Over twenty years. Over this particular twenty-year period, the luck and the breaks mean my decision to hold international stocks has averaged about a -0.1%/year drag.

That really doesn't bother me. It could go the other way in the next few years, or maybe not. It just hasn't mattered much. It was a reasonable decision, and it's turned out perfectly OK.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by invest4 »

20% Intl.

Rationale is similar to others. I want to own the broader market and appreciate the diversification it provides.
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Da5id »

goonie wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:27 pm I'll never regret not saying that I'll never regret something.
Same!
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by JonnyDVM »

Da5id wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:53 pm
goonie wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:27 pm I'll never regret not saying that I'll never regret something.
Same!
I wouldn’t not ever agree with that statement
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by tibbitts »

Hyperchicken wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:44 pm Minimizing regret is a suboptimal metric for managing one's finances.
What metric would be more optimal?
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Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Da5id »

JonnyDVM wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:54 pm
Da5id wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:53 pm
goonie wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:27 pm I'll never regret not saying that I'll never regret something.
Same!
I wouldn’t not ever agree with that statement
Parsing all this is kind of like parsing "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
james22
Posts: 1992
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:22 pm

Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by james22 »

tvubpwcisla wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 10:55 amI'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio
I'll take that bet.
Dave55
Posts: 2017
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 2:51 pm

Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by Dave55 »

I hold International Stocks because having been to Europe and Asia and seen the economic vibrancy there, I want to own a piece of that. USA and Int Index's combined by using VTI and VXUS, hold approximately 11,000 companies. I like the thought of all those employees getting up every morning and going to work for me. Finally, why do most Target Date Funds put out by the major Investment Companies have International as part of their portfolio? Why do many if not most financial advisors use international in portfolios?

Dave
"Reality always wins, your only job is to get in touch with it." Wilfred Bion
MorgansRun
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2021 8:07 am

Re: I'll never regret not having international funds in my portfolio

Post by MorgansRun »

My international exposure is S&P index companies who do business outside of the US. I'm sure there are many, but what's the flaw in that logic?
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