Hi William:
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1) Pacific index is mostly Japan and that is a lot of single country exposure
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Well, you've got 90% of your other stocks in
one country [The USA].
Seriously though, currently, Japan only represents 2.43% [10% * 1/3 * 73%] of your equities. In addition its not like VPACX isn't diversified by
company and
sector, or at least as much as many US stock funds.
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2) these indices are mostly growth oriented
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True, as are they "large" oriented like TSM.
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3) having at least some actively managed international could be a plus.
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that is one way to look at it I suppose. You could also look at #2 and #3 and say, "I want more int'l value and int'l small exposure, so I'd need to use actively managed funds to do so." As long as those funds are fairly passive [low turnover], and low cost, and run for the shareholders, not the managers and owners, probably nothing wrong with that.
Given this, however, I think I'd rather get my small exposure in the US where I only have to pay around 0.20%, rather than paying north of 1.00% for int'l small. Also, Vanguard's Int'l value isn't really all that much more valuey than Vanguard's developed market index, if we're using p/b to measure valuey-ness. By comparison, DFA's Int'l value has a p/b around 1.1, compared to 1.7 for VTRIX and 1.9 for VDMIX.
btw - I haven't seen anything to support the idea that active management works any better or worse for int'l stocks than it does for US stocks.
- Alec