It depends what kind of questions you’re trying to answer. If you want to know the return, you check total return, but if you want to compare the value between two points in history, you rather go for the price index. I mean, look: the companies pay out dividends, this money leaves these companies and the investors do with it what they please. I’m not saying that investing in VXUS 9 years ago didn’t bring any return. I’m saying that all the international stock market (exUS), according do the price, is worth less than 9 years ago, or maybe even 20 years.
Let me post the ACWI ex US chart again. It shows something like 150 for the end of february. Right now we’re probably somewhere at 120. That’s the level we had in 1999. How can it be that investors value the companies at the same level as 21 years ago? With all the technological advancements that happened. Has USA stock market sucked out all returns from the World?
