Columbia, Egypt, and Indonesia: Oh my!

With approximately half the stock market value being concentrated in the US, it is no surprise that we Americans tend to invest the majority of our assets in our home country. This is called "home country bias" and occurs in most countries. This strategy is a fine for Americans but remember that the US ranked #33 in returns in the 10 year period ending December 31, 2013 (Source Morningstar). The top performers were Columbia, Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Malaysia, and the Czech Republic. There have been more than a few scary headlines from these nations although their markets did very well. The takeaway is that one should consider staying globally diversified and that negative headlines and market performance don't necessarily go hand in hand.