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一直以來還蠻喜歡WSJ的.  這幾天看到一篇文章還不錯, 有興趣就繼續往下看摟.  窗外的四月雪從屋內看蠻美的, 書桌上擺著惱人的Intl. Acct., 又要考試了…

以下來自 WSJ: Ten Reasons to Consider Global Funds

Conventional wisdom says international stock markets are much more "risky" than Wall Street.

Many Americans agree, judging by their investment choices. According to data from the Investment Company Institute, American mutual fund investors hold more than three times as much in domestic equity mutual funds as they do in funds that invest internationally. As investors have fled the market, they have been cashing in their overseas stock funds, proportionately, twice as quickly as their domestic funds. After all, global funds faced a double whammy last year: Declining equity markets almost everywhere and a strengthening dollar that made foreign assets worth less to U.S. investors.

But is the conventional wisdom right?

There are ten reasons to think it isn’t. If you are looking to get back into the market, it may actually be safer to buy a "global" fund than one which only invests in the U.S. Consider:

1. You have plenty of exposure to the U.S. economy already. You work here. You may own a home here. And so, in most cases, do most of your friends and family. You hardly need to double down.

2. Investing in one country increases so-called "Japan" risk — namely the possibility that your investments may languish in a single, ailing stock market, as happened to Japanese investors after 1989. But those who invested globally were able to profit from rising international markets.

3. The almighty dollar’s days look numbered. Yawning federal deficits are raising questions, again, about the greenback. Ultimately, the dollar will sink again and when it does, U.S. investors owning foreign equities will benefit.

4. The U.S. stock market is the biggest and best-known market in the world. Thus, it is more likely to be overvalued than foreign markets. That’s bad news for investors. Right now, according to FactSet, the domestic market trades on 1.7 times book value. The rest of the world: 1.1 times.

5. The "foreign is risky" argument dates back to the days when very few foreign countries were capitalist. Today that view seems woefully out of date and somewhat ridiculous.

6. That argument also dates back to when the U.S. accounted for half of the global economy. Today it accounts for about a quarter. Restricting your investments to that small share of the pie makes no real sense.

7. Even if we avoid a further economic meltdown, the US economy is still struggling with a mountain of debt. Asian economies, on the contrary, have mountains of savings. Choosing to bet on the former and not the latter is a gamble.

8. Investing globally ensures you are exposed to fast-growing emerging markets as well as older, more developed ones. Who knows which economies will boom over the next decade?

9. While many international markets have been worse investments over the past two years, over longer periods the picture is better. Someone who invested all their money on Wall Street 10 years ago would still be down 3% today, even when you count reinvested dividends, according to FactSet. Someone who shunned Wall Street and invested overseas would be up 38%.

10. Global investing has minimized risk at key moments in the past. Philippe Jorion, economics professor at University of California-Irvine, says investing globally would have greatly helped investors even during the great crash of 1929-1932. US markets, including reinvested dividends, lost about 69% by the lows, he said. Global markets overall: Only about 53%.

Of course, back then it was hard for private investors to invest in overseas markets. No wonder most investors had to stick to Wall Street and got caned. Today there are a legion of global mutual and exchange-traded funds that anyone can buy.