What %age of foreign equities do you own

[nun]

Globalization is all the rage and China and Singapore are buying up US financial firms as fast as they can. So given that the most dynamic economies are abroad what fraction of your portfolio is foreign equities?

I'm at 35%

 

[Darryl]

Target is 25% and I'm just a little over that now.

 

[Surfdaddy]

I'm at 35%. Some people advocate up to 50%, and others only 20%. The 35% level is where I'm comfortable. Given the declining dollar, it has helped my portfolio substantially this year (as have emerging markets). I rebalanced out of some emerging markets a couple of weeks ago, as that fund had exceeded my asset allocation targets by more than my cutoff tolerances.

 

[spazz]

My foreign equities is as follows:

27% U.S. (from Canada)
28% International
2% Emerging Markets (BRIC)

I would like to bring up my U.S. to 30% and EM to 5%

Happy Holidays

 

[CyclingInvestor]

0%. Most countries do not have reporting standards or histories necessary for me to analyze the
companies. I also have a hard time getting a sense of the management quality. I rely on the
foreign components of the big US multinationals, which can be substantial.

 

[nun]

I'm surprised by the initial results of the poll; the %age of foreign equities is higher that I'd imagined. I own 35% foreigh equities as a hedge against the falling dollar as I plan to retire to Europe. Once I ER and emmigrate I plan to move to 40% foreign equity, 30% US equity and 30% bonds

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

It's not quite the uncorrelated asset class that I once thought it was, but I'm sticking to 25% of stocks, as Vgd Total Intnl fund.

 

[kumquat]

I voted 10 - 20. Since I'm in Canuckistan, that means about 95 to you guys since my US exposure is about 5%.

 

[Retire Soon]

Currently 20% of my stock porfolio is in Vangard Total International.

 

[TickTock]

24%

 

[Dawg52]

Just ran an overall portfolio analysis with Fidelity and it shows 32% U.S. and 14% foreign. So 46% stocks, 54% bonds/cash. About where I want to be.

 

[nun]

I'd be interested to hear why some folks have greater than 50% of their portfolio in foreign equity.

 

[TickTock]

nun,

I think you may be getting two different types of responses; % of total portfolio and % of equity portion of portfolio. My answer was % of total.

US equity is less than half of total world equity, and a world indexing strategy calls for >50% of equities to be ex-US. I'm guessing that's where you're getting the >50% from. Or, it may be from non-US investors.

 

[Bestwifeever]

We keep 10 percent in FDIVX. Which category do you want me to check ?

 

[RunningBum]

Some of the respondees have already indicated they aren't from the US. If you're from a small enough country, it probably makes a lot of sense to be > 50% foreign, especially with foreign including the US. I don't really have a good idea how much a typical foreign investor is in US stocks.

 

[LOL!]

I'd be interested to hear why some folks have greater than 50% of their portfolio in foreign equity.

Because the US is going down the tubes? Well, not quite, but the leadership position enjoyed by many US companies is waning. If I look around my house, neighborhood, city and state, I see lots of evidence of foreign goods and services. With the world being flat nowadays, why shouldn't I invest in emerging markets, Japan, the UK and Europe?

 

[nun]

Because the US is going down the tubes? Well, not quite, but the leadership position enjoyed by many US companies is waning. If I look around my house, neighborhood, city and state, I see lots of evidence of foreign goods and services. With the world being flat nowadays, why shouldn't I invest in emerging markets, Japan, the UK and Europe?

I completely agree

 

[jIMOh]

25%

T Rowe International Growth and income TGRIX (15% of rollover for me, 100% of wife's Roth)
T Rowe International Discovery PRDIX (10% of my rollover, 15% of my Roth)
T Rowe Overseas Stock TROSX (100% of wife's rollover)
American funds Europacific Fund REREX (25% of wife's 401k)
Vanguard International Value VTRIX (25% of my 401k)

also own T Rowe Spectrum Income RPSIX, which owns T Rowe International Bond fund and T Rowe Emerging Markets Bond fund.

 

[waltwill8]

Was 60% two years ago. Been taking profits this year. Now down to 30%
the dollar has been going up now for a while. Probably time to get out.

 

[jIMOh]

I'm surprised by the initial results of the poll; the %age of foreign equities is higher that I'd imagined. I own 35% foreigh equities as a hedge against the falling dollar as I plan to retire to Europe. Once I ER and emmigrate I plan to move to 40% foreign equity, 30% US equity and 30% bonds

It should be noted that around 50% of the returns for most Foreign equity funds are because of the falling dollar- the holdings of the funds are doing OK, probably no better than their US counterparts (my US funds did well in 2007, the falling dollar, IMO, made the foreign funds do MUCH better).

As I look forward, I am going to add a foreign currency position to my portfolio. For example a fund which invests in swiss francs or currencies of other countries (foreign money market if you will).

One such fund is PRPFX (Permanent Portfolio)- but that fund is not a pure currency play, it just holds around 10-20% of it's NAV in swiss francs.

I think the falling dollar is the next bubble to pop. So I keep my foreign funds at 25% overall, and keep taking profits when I rebalance 2X per year.

 

[dmpi]

I'm about 25% Foreign. I'm also thinking that the run on the US dollar is over and 2008 won't be so good for Foreign stocks. We also got the bubble with emerging markets - this has made me a bit scared. I might reallocate 5% back to US stocks, because I think it's safer over there.

 

[snodog]

I'd be interested to hear why some folks have greater than 50% of their portfolio in foreign equity.

Well i'm right at 50%. I just think it is risky to hold more than half your nest egg in one country. Look at what happened in Japan the last 20 or so years. Or in the US from 1966-82. We are currently in a similar stretch 2000-07. And givin that our economy is about half the global, 50% feels about right.

 

[igsoy]

I have 42% of my market investments (stocks and stock/bond funds) in foreign, but if I figure from my entire portfolio it is 32%.

 

[Hamlet]

I only at about 10%. I've bought mostly individual stocks, and I don't have any understanding of foreign markets. I've been ramping up my foreign exposure for about the last year by buying international mutual funds in my 401k, as well as VEU in my taxable account.

I don't want to be the guy jumping into the hot asset class at the end of a giant run, so I'm going in slowly. I'll probably stop when I get to 20-25%.

It isn't as bad as it sounds, since my big US companies have a lot of business overseas (JNJ, MCD, MMM, and Berkshire).

People have been saying that the US is falling apart since Revolutionary war. Wasn't Japan supposed to own our country by now?

I suspect that talk of our decline is a little overdone.

 

[spazz]

I'm surprised by the initial results of the poll; the %age of foreign equities is higher that I'd imagined.

Out of sixty-six voters so far, 31% have between 20-30% in foreign equities. To me, this was a surprise because most investors seem to experience home bias syndrome. Perhaps the importance of global diversification is finally getting through to the investing world.