Country Specific Funds

aroominyork

If you don't like the idea of investing in a US market dominated be a few monoliths, have you considered an equal weighted S&P fund, where you have the same amount invested in the 500th company as in Apple? 

in_my_eyes

And how has the Chinese stock market performed over the last decade, during which its economy has grown so fast? Very poorly.

More generally, is there any positive correlation at all between high economic growth and high stock market returns? It may be important to distinguish between expectedly and unexpectedly high economic growth. The world and their dog expects China to overtake the USA as an economic superpower.

AnotherJoe

Yes. I am probably over-tweaking by looking at  specific nations rather than regions and, yes, tinkering like this may be a mug's game. Even so, I would like to take a few punts on the prospects offered by apparently undervalued markets

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For the reasons I listed above, you  would be tilting at windmills (especially with the countries you chose)
Instead I suggest you take punts on;
- undeveloped regions 
- themes you  think will do well in future , say such as healthcare, renewable energy
- smaller companies. 

LHW99

AnotherJoe said:

For the reasons I listed above, you  would be tilting at windmills (especially with the countries you chose)
Instead I suggest you take punts on;
- undeveloped regions 
- themes you  think will do well in future , say such as healthcare, renewable energy
- smaller companies. 

If you compare the holdings of say, Frontier, Asian & MENA active smaller companies funds, you may be able to find some with a larger weighting to, say Singapore, Australia. AFAIK, they do tend to have higher charges even than standard active funds (the ones I've looked at anyway) - probably reasonably as it would need the manager to have access to specialised research.

takesyourchances

I have a couple of thousand so far in Middlefield Canadian Income, it has some US exposure but around 60% - 70% Canada. It is high in the Canadian Energy and Real Estate sector and banking. I hold it has a bit of a diversifer of income streams with it's decent yield in a spread of IT's.

I have spent a lot of time in Canada over many years and still go regular so it is partly interest as well and knowing the country and I personally like having a bit of a niche exposure to Canada and it is a small holding in my portfolio.

Canada can be viewed as the "boring" part of North America, but has a lot of dependable companies and dividends which I wanted to tap into via this IT.

This is my only niche country holding out of the countries you mentioned.

DairyQueen

AnotherJoe said:

Instead I suggest you take punts on;
- undeveloped regions 
- themes you  think will do well in future , say such as healthcare, renewable energy
- smaller companies. 

I hold small caps (US, UK, Asia). At one time I erratically dabbled in themes but a single level of analysis beyond the two majors (asset allocation and sub-portfolio) is a better (easier?) fit for me. If I introduced themes I would need to breakdown each thematic fund by region/country in order to rebalance. 

Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated. I do listen to guidance from those more experienced and I will research undeveloped regions.

Thrugelmir

DairyQueen said:

AnotherJoe said:

Instead I suggest you take punts on;
- undeveloped regions 
- themes you  think will do well in future , say such as healthcare, renewable energy
- smaller companies. 

I hold small caps (US, UK, Asia). At one time I erratically dabbled in themes but a single level of analysis beyond the two majors (asset allocation and sub-portfolio) is a better (easier?) fit for me. If I introduced themes I would need to breakdown each thematic fund by region/country in order to rebalance. 

Where a Company has it's brass plate may have little bearing on where it's assets are deployed. 

AnotherJoe

DairyQueen. 

If I introduced themes I would need to breakdown each thematic fund by region/country in order to rebalance. 

As said, the brass nameplate indicates little and may even be wholly misleading.  The whole point of a theme is to not to have to diversify geographically, that will be taken care of by the theme. If you choose a renewable energy company for example, you want a big profitable one and not to arbitrarily to try find also  in say Netherlands which might be one hundredth the size of a U.S or UK company simply due to geography or some other factor.