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Here's a way to help restore the site's integrity. Stop talking about censorship and fighting for a minute and answer Dave's question. Here, I'll make a suggestion--VWIGX. Low fees and solid performance. On the value side of the equation, which I think makes more sense right now after such strong growth performance, there's HFQTX.
In fairness, I think part of what's going on is the season we're in and after November this will dissipate somewhat.
@DaveC: you may note that some of the suggested funds are global, as opposed to international. I prefer global funds myself and offer MGGPX for your consideration.
My favorite fund is MIOPX which is managed by Kristen Heugh. This is a strong international fund with broad exposure to Europe as well as emerging markets. Ben suggested their global fund which is also excellent. If you run the numbers you'll see that it consistently outperforms all other funds internationally over 3, 5, and 7 years. In a down market it will get hit, but it actually held up well in March this year. A second fund that I think highly of is FSEAX. This is focused exclusively on emerging asia so it provides strong China exposure. I am just watching this one right now because of tensions with China but it also is a strong consistent performer. MATFX from Matthews is also intriguing.
Depending on your risk tolerance, here are a few choices:
For low fee and consistent performance, Vanguard International Growth fund, VHIGX, is a good choice. The Admiral share has even lower fee. VHIGX has 22% emerging market 14% US exposure while the rest are in developed market.
On the value side, the new Vanguard Global Wellington, VGWLX, is a global allocation fund with 65/35 stocks/bond. This fund held up well in March drawdown and it is the most conservative of the three listed here.
For smaller cap global exposure, Grandeur Peak Global Stalwarts Fund, GGSOX, is a solid choice with consistent performance. The portfolio has 14% emerging market and 45% US exposure. The ER is higher than the Vanguard funds above.
That helps. I didn't know whether you were looking for a core fund or a good esoteric fund.
For the past several years, the more growthy a large cap international fund has been, the better it is likely to have done. This difference is not small, the margin is huge. The average category returns (per M*) over the past five years are: LCG 9.62%, LC Bl 5.28%, LCV 2.36%.
There's no guarantee this will continue, and using a large cap blend fund is a good way to hedge your bets. Even within this category, though, the more the fund leans toward growth, the better its history will look.
With that in mind, a fund worth considering is MDIDX. It's a fund of funds from MFS, a good family for international funds. While M* considers it a blend fund, it has been a bit growthy and Lipper classifies it as a multi-cap growth fund. But it just added MKVHX (LCV) as one of the funds it holds, and adjusted its allocations so that the fund should be an "honest" blend fund going forward. Part of that adjustment was to increase its EM component weight to 17.5% which is reasonable for a core fund unless you want to have a separate EM fund and control that allocation yourself.
It has a somewhat smaller than average market cap, which is why Lipper considers it multi-cap rather than large cap. IMHO that's another plus for the fund, especially if one is looking for more of an all-in-one fund.
It is fairly tax efficient, so it can be used both inside and outside of an IRA. The ER of the fund is 1.11%, which includes the expenses of the underlying funds it invests in. That's a bit higher than I'd like for a large cap fund, but it's not outrageous.
If you want a more growthy fund, SCIEX is a fund that M* calls blend and Lipper calls large cap growth. It's managed by Schroeder, which is one of the two firms submanaging VWIGX, a fine large cap growth fund suggested by Lewis above. (However, SCIEX isn't great on tax efficiency.)
If you want a more value leaning fund, TROSX suggested by Mulder420 above, is a good prospect.
Virtually all of the funds suggested in this thread come from families with excellent reputations for international investing.
I personally don't have any international investments at this time. However, in the August AAII Journal MATFX is the top international "fund" YTD and for 2019. It ranks second over the past five years!
I invested in OAKIX and later in FMIJX when they were highly touted on M* and various boards. They are still gold rated on M* (believe it or not) but have done poorly so far this year. I give up in trying to pick a good int'l fund. When int'l starts doing better, I will sell these funds and go with index funds or ETFs. Today's darling can easily be tomorrow's loser, and the index funds seem to do better than the losers when the market is unfavorable.
I stared the year with FMIJX and SFGIX, 2 long time holdings. Back in april-may I moved all of SFGIX and most of FMIJX to ARTYX. I guess that is my favorite. It's worked out well. Also hold a global fund GPGOX.
Hard to argue with VWIGX, but check out VIHAX. You can expect a bumpy ride, but OAKIX charges more for the same excitement.
Like others here, I’m in FMIJX and riding it out... but not necessarily recommending it. Their market commentary is good but starting to sound like a broken record - either they’re failing to adapt to a new reality or they’ll eventually be proven right. Not sure I’d pay new money to find out.
This year is tough for many fine funds which are not growth-oriented. This pandemic induced recession favor some sectors more than others. Hopefully it will broaden out.
Vanguard INTERNATIONAL Growth Fund. How are Tesla and Amazon considered international equities?
Often the prospectus would allow minor percentages of holding from US as long as most of the revenue is derived from overseas. It happens that they picked two of the highest performing US growth stocks. Once I found two US cruiseline companies in Rondure New World fund, a frontier market fund. I was told by Rondure representative that was okay since they fall within their investment parameters by the same reason I stated above. I understand that Artisan Developing Marketing fund, ARTYX, also have several large US growth stocks.
I've been impressed by the approach taken by Grandeur Peak (as well as by the performance). They seem interested in serving their clients, not merely themselves. In tough markets, like 4th quarter 2018, they may drop like a rock but seem to recover quite well. I used to own OAKIX. Performance, both medium and long term, can now be described as no better than average while volatility is off the charts and fees are too high. The comment about FMIJX reports sounding like a broken record struck home. So many redemptions there, year end capital gains distributions may be ugly for a taxable account. Sold that earlier this year. It's hard to overlook the hot streak VWIGX has been on. Gaudy is the word. But even when you back out 2020 performance it has done very well historically. Personally, I've also opted for rock bottom expenses in the form of VTMGX.
Comments
In fairness, I think part of what's going on is the season we're in and after November this will dissipate somewhat.
You haven't indicated what are you looking for: small, mid or large cap? Growth vs Value? Taxable vs non-taxable accounts?
QUSOX
GPGOX
https://mutualfundobserver.com/2015/02/pear-tree-polaris-foreign-value-small-cap-qusoxqusix-february-2015/
For low fee and consistent performance, Vanguard International Growth fund, VHIGX, is a good choice. The Admiral share has even lower fee. VHIGX has 22% emerging market 14% US exposure while the rest are in developed market.
On the value side, the new Vanguard Global Wellington, VGWLX, is a global allocation fund with 65/35 stocks/bond. This fund held up well in March drawdown and it is the most conservative of the three listed here.
For smaller cap global exposure, Grandeur Peak Global Stalwarts Fund, GGSOX, is a solid choice with consistent performance. The portfolio has 14% emerging market and 45% US exposure. The ER is higher than the Vanguard funds above.
That helps. I didn't know whether you were looking for a core fund or a good esoteric fund.
For the past several years, the more growthy a large cap international fund has been, the better it is likely to have done. This difference is not small, the margin is huge. The average category returns (per M*) over the past five years are: LCG 9.62%, LC Bl 5.28%, LCV 2.36%.
There's no guarantee this will continue, and using a large cap blend fund is a good way to hedge your bets. Even within this category, though, the more the fund leans toward growth, the better its history will look.
With that in mind, a fund worth considering is MDIDX. It's a fund of funds from MFS, a good family for international funds. While M* considers it a blend fund, it has been a bit growthy and Lipper classifies it as a multi-cap growth fund. But it just added MKVHX (LCV) as one of the funds it holds, and adjusted its allocations so that the fund should be an "honest" blend fund going forward. Part of that adjustment was to increase its EM component weight to 17.5% which is reasonable for a core fund unless you want to have a separate EM fund and control that allocation yourself.
It has a somewhat smaller than average market cap, which is why Lipper considers it multi-cap rather than large cap. IMHO that's another plus for the fund, especially if one is looking for more of an all-in-one fund.
It is fairly tax efficient, so it can be used both inside and outside of an IRA. The ER of the fund is 1.11%, which includes the expenses of the underlying funds it invests in. That's a bit higher than I'd like for a large cap fund, but it's not outrageous.
If you want a more growthy fund, SCIEX is a fund that M* calls blend and Lipper calls large cap growth. It's managed by Schroeder, which is one of the two firms submanaging VWIGX, a fine large cap growth fund suggested by Lewis above. (However, SCIEX isn't great on tax efficiency.)
If you want a more value leaning fund, TROSX suggested by Mulder420 above, is a good prospect.
Virtually all of the funds suggested in this thread come from families with excellent reputations for international investing.
Like others here, I’m in FMIJX and riding it out... but not necessarily recommending it. Their market commentary is good but starting to sound like a broken record - either they’re failing to adapt to a new reality or they’ll eventually be proven right. Not sure I’d pay new money to find out.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/962395/best-of-breed-international-equity-funds
Both articles consider active and passive funds.