International stocks are a great way to diversify away from the U.S. But when a home country bias is alive and well, it’s easy to ignore everything else. U.S. stocks have performed admirably in the past, but international stocks have too.
Since 1970, the S&P 500 performed at a 10.40% annual clip (with dividends). Did you know that during that same time, international stocks practically matched it?
You can try to hand-pick countries based on expected returns or go with a basket of countries that captures all that missed opportunity. The tables below show how international stock returns breakdown. Hopefully, it makes the argument to stop ignoring the big opportunity outside the U.S. Continue Reading…
Dividends are the easiest way to return money to shareholders. This draw a big enough following that there’s a label for it – dividend investing. For investors who proudly wear that label, I’d argue you should look for companies with a different type of yield appropriately called shareholder yield.
Given the choice between two funds – an index fund vs ETF – that meet the same goal, costs are a big deciding factor. The same principle works for the active vs index argument too. Why pay more for something when you get the same results for less somewhere else.