Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Indexing foreign funds

Opinions please:

Is there a reason foreign markets would be better or worse candidates for indexing as compared with domestic markets?

Would you rather own VEA or DODFX?

Comments

  • Dodge and Cox International (DODFX) is a value oriented fund. So the two strategies are different to begin with. I don't know if there are any value-oriented indexes for the international developed market.

    I don't care to go with international indexes because they don't account for national and regional issues. I'm thinking about stability, demographic trends, shareholder rights, corporate governance, rule of law, and so on. I'ld rather have someone keeping an eye on that for me.

    And I don't care to own ETF's, which I understand to be derivatives designed for trading. Avoiding indexes, and ETF's, is one of the ways left to be a contrary investor.

    M* lumps VEA and FMIJX into the international large blend category, while Lipper puts VEA in multi-cap core and FMIJX into multi-cap growth. FMIJX does not limit itself to developed markets. So they don't exactly swim in the same pool. But that's not important to me.

    Using mfopremium I can compare the two funds over the nine years that FMIJX has been in existence. Its APR is 8.2 to 4.9 for VEA. Maximum draw-down over that time period was 13.7 for FMIJX to 23.3 for VEA. And all of the usual risk factors favor FMIJX.

  • There are International Value ETF's for sure. One can sort out the 'developed market' issues for themselves.

    From ETFdb.com

    From ETFdailynews.com

    From US News Money
  • SWISX, Schwab’s developped markets index fund, is good. You get a lot of Japan and no EM, so there is a bias built in. I prefer to use global funds for large cap international and hit the EM and S/Mid in separate funds. Maybe international will out perform one of these years, but the wait has been long. If you had put money into VEU 10 years ago, you’d have made a bit more than 5% per annum for your pain.
  • This group, esp Ted, helped me with this category. In my mind, there's too much junk out there to round up in a world index. No thanks. The global fund that's been rock solid for me, and certainly not a value fund, is MGGPX. That guy is keen on weeding the dead weight, but let's see if it continues. Good luck!
  • Right there with you Starchild. It and GLFOX are the only ones I own at a 9:1 ratio.
Sign In or Register to comment.