Investors NEED International Exposure!

I think we need to first talk about why investors need international equity exposure right now. And I will admit, going back for the last few decades, if there was any way to put somebody to sleep when you're talking about investments, it's probably talking about international equity investing. The fact of the matter is, given the strong bull market that the US equity market has experienced over the last few years, international equities have lagged. The good news is times are changing.

And while US growth stocks and the major broad-based indices that are really growth oriented have been performing exceptionally well, it's not the only place that's seeing success. In fact, if you look at the Aquex XUS index on a year-to-date basis going through October 31st, it's up nearly 29%. And that's compared to the S&P 500, which is up 17.5%. So, again, very attractive returns.

Not only is it really strong on the returns front, that is the international equity space XUS, it's doing so with less volatility and lower draw downs. And when we talk about this with investors, they honestly have the blinders on and they don't acknowledge or understand what's going on in the marketplace. And when you mention facts like other major broad-based equity indices like in Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Brazil, all of their major broad-based indices are at all-time highs and even the Chinese and Hong Kong indices are pretty much very close to their all-time highs within the last four years.

So there is a tremendous opportunity out there given what has gone on in the US equity space. Unfortunately, there's a huge recency bias in terms of returns, but also home biasy in terms of investing in only domestic equities and we think geopolitical concerns are easing, growth is accelerating, and we would argue that we are just in the beginning phases of a very real secular change in the international equity market. So that's something just holistically when we talk to investors, why should you be concerned with international equities? Yes, it's diversification, but the fact of the matter is over the last year performance has been exceptionally strong.