That’s easy innit? “Diversification is the only free lunch in investing”. EM tilt is concentration. Mic drop
P.S. EMs could/would/should have Eed by now, feels to me like it’s generals fighting the last war because by some fluke of fate EMs outperformed once in human history. I’d personally just look at what is under EMs and pick a handful of countries and be done with it.
IIRC, small cap and EM tilt are in many investing books, might have seen in “random walk down wall street” (higher volatility, supposedly leading to higher long term return, but yeah the previous decades haven’t been kind to EM).
Well, the classification, e.g. MSCI, is actually about how well the stocks market is working and how well the rights of investors are upheld. There (used to be) the rule of law in developed markets.
They have capital (flow) controls.
They lack liquid capital markets and broad-based investor participation.
They often have a high currency risk.
They limit foreign ownership of domestic assets (beyond defense or similar).
They occasionally have government turnovers or coups (or just the South Korean president declaring martial law and getting ousted).
They have flourishing corruption.
The list goes on.
Anyway, this all makes long-term investing less predictable, reduces foreign investor confidence and weakens the rule of law (again predictability).
More risk? Definitely!
More return? We’ll … see?
Side note: again symptomatic for this topic for this answer – Goofy chastises himself for elaborating on EM versus not when OP asked for … well, something else, I think?
@PhilMongoose mentioned THE important point. What I called „Investment beliefs“ and he called „convinction“. No matter how good a strategy was, it will fail of it was not executed with conviction.
No matter to what extent we think that 100% Market Cap Weight beats anything, it doesnt help when the strategy was given up in the worst Moment.
Therefore, I generally tend to take the first proposal if the advise seeker, and slightly tilt it in the right direction (use SPI instead of DIv, Move US and ExUS to VWRL, …) small changes in the right direction, but still roughly aligned with the original conviction the user mentioned. Clearly, there is limits to that - in case someone came down with a completely ridiculous starting point.
So… where do I want to get down to? Just selling Vt or VWRL as a one-stop shop will do investors a dis-service if that gives them a Portfolio that they no longer embrace and beliefe in.
Its also the loss of conviction that became clear with the drastic changes from Version 1 to Version 2… that made me recommend going to a Robo Advisor instead, ensure no Time in the Market was lost… and then once Robo Advised build up a Investment beliefs / convictions instead.
Therefore, again - please don‘t just overrule everything with „go VWRL“.
I recognise a tendency from when I started investing: Trying to optimize everything, leading to complexity.
However: you might change your mind about your strategy later anyways (and your don’t yet know how to invest practically nor how you’ll actually react to investing).
Which is where the following suggestion comes in:
You might
First develop your strategy for the timeline of getting your money invested in (typically DCA or a combination of DCA and lump sum).
Start dripping your money into one simple, one stop shop, global ETF that could be the backbone of ANY investment strategy.
Allowing you to get started and learn about yourself and investing.
Caveat 1: You said you’re okay with volatility which I interpret as “you’ve informed yourself and know that the market will fall and crash from time to time and you commit to staying invested not if, but when your portfolio value declines”. If this is not the case, you might want to keep educating yourself before starting investing.
Let me also write my advise to you and my past self.
Try to figure out your Risk tolerance/capacity etc. Read on the net - Check Ben Felix relevant video. Do what ever online tests exist. Check the result and be more conservative.
DCA into the stock market. (Not days but months and even years)
Buy a single WORLD etf “VT/VWRL/WRDUSY/WEBG etc & Relax”
If you feel like it, allocate ~20% in CHSPI.
So max 2 ETFs.
I wouldn’t bother with Gold, Silver, aluminium, stones, high dividend, sectors, crypto etc and anything that is <10% of your portfolio.
Will not make any difference in the outcome and will keep you wondering for ever!
Change your allocation if you really need to, after educating yourself.
If you have the urge to change something, hold on for some months. If you still want to make the change, most likely you are making a mistake. But hey, at least you had your time to change your mind
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