My Vanguard portfolio has US and international stock and bond index funds. Plus a shitload of short to medium term treasuries. Not long because I hold to maturity to avoid selling at loss and I am old.

I started investing in international in November. Aiming for 50/50 but not there yet.

Most improvements in overseas funds are just due to the U.S. dollar dropping 10%. It doesn’t mean those companies are performing better.

Oh well.

Well, this is a very strange market that has nothing to do with logical, value investing.

But I will note that the dollar is rapidly declining in value. More than 10 percent in the last six months, which is a big move. So whatever you think you may have gained recently in domestic stocks, take 10 percent off in real world value.

Everyone needs to counter the devaluation of the US dollar, so being present in global markets makes sense. And if Republicans succeed in getting rid of Powell, I'd think there will be another huge leg down for the dollar.

We do 15% international.

Exchange Rate risk means that even if some foreign index goes up a lot, the US value might bot go up identically and could go down.

Tariff fallout gonna catch up everyone and we are going to see a crash in the next few years if not sooner. Right now everyone is a genius in a bull market.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fan of international diversification, but there is also something to be said for sticking to your guns. I've been 50% international for 30 years and it has been really hard to keep that allocation during the last 10 years of massive underperformance relative to US stocks. So make sure you are comfortable with whatever allocation you choose and stick with it.

Why have you stayed in with international so long?? I dropped all international 18 years ago when I realized that in the long run those funds underperform the US stock market by a LOT.

Not true at all. Almost all of international underperformance began in 2010. There is no reason to believe that the US will outperform International. It would be nice if it was as simple as just picking the United States and then just claiming victory because it's a slam dunk because you know USA is #1. It's a no brainer if you just look at recent performance, but investing based on recent performance is a really bad strategy.

In fact projections are that international will outperform. Who knows how accurate those projections will be though.

Stop. S&P is up 90%+ over last 5 years. International Index is up only 50%
Don't try to time the market, you will lose.