FYI: The best way we know to earn consistent returns and preserve wealth is to build portfolios that are as resilient as possible to the range of ways the world could unfold. To uncover vulnerabilities that are outside of investors’ recent lived experiences, we find it valuable to stress test portfolios across the various environments that have cropped up across countries throughout history.
One common vulnerability is geographic concentration. In the past century, there have been many times when investors concentrated in one country saw their wealth wiped out by geopolitical upheavals, debt crises, monetary reforms, or the bursting of bubbles, while markets in other countries remained resilient. Even without such extreme events, there is always a big divergence across the best and worst performing countries in any given period. And no one country consistently outperforms, as outperformance can lead to relative overvaluation and a subsequent reversal. Rather than try to predict who the winner will be in any particular period, a geographically diversified portfolio creates a more consistent return stream that tends to do almost as well as whatever the best single country turns out to be at any point in time. So geographic diversification has big upside and little downside for investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bridgewater.com/research-library/daily-observations/geographic-diversification-can-be-a-lifesaver/
