Fisher Investments’ Founder, Ken Fisher, Debunks: “You Don’t Need Foreign Stocks”

Transcript

Ken Fisher:

For most of the people that are going to listen to this video, you're trying to get a good return without taking too darn much risk. You don't see yourself as a wheeler-dealer. You don't see yourself as a hot hand. And you say to yourself, "how do I do that?" So, a couple of years ago, I started doing these monthly depictions of these little short chapters out of my Debunkery book from 2011 and, you know, there's just—these are all like, really short chapters, taking something that people talk about and saying, "why, it's nonsense." And there's enough nonsense out there about capital markets that I probably could have written a book three times as long, but this is the book that I wrote, so.

And then I kind of put these on hiatus for a few months when my Only Three Questions book came out with another modernizing revision, and so, I went over each of those three questions, one month at a time. So, it's been a few months since I've picked up on doing more debunkeries. But today, I'm going to do debunkery number 44. And why invest in foreign, "Who Needs Foreign?" is the title of the chapter. Now I'm going to say this really simply, and it's so simple, that a lot of people will bridle at it. If you think about stocks correctly, and if you don't mis-categorize them— which, people mis-categorize them all the time, in all kinds of ways, including index providers— stocks of different correctly-chosen categories, in the very long term, ought to have pretty similar returns. But in the short- and intermediate- term can have wildly different returns because of what's happening with their expected earnings moving forward. But growth stocks and value stocks should end up with similar long-term returns. Stocks of major nations should, stocks of similar types should, and stocks of similar types with different types— if you're categorizing the types correctly.

The problem is, that doesn't always show up in data as it's done, because a lot of data is compiled in categories that are kind of mishmashes. Now, why foreign? Well, it's perfectly obvious. If you really know a lot about stocks, and if you're really good at market timing, and if you're really good at doing research, you might be trying to get the highest possible return, and you might be prepared comfortably to take risks that most people don't want to take. But otherwise, for most of the people that are going to listen to this video, you're trying to get a good return without taking too darn much risk. You don't see yourself as a wheeler-dealer. You don't see yourself as a hot hand. And you say to yourself, "how do I do that?" Well, mind you, in recent years, a lot of people have said—because, in the period largely that the book's been out, US stocks, most of the time, have done much better than non-US stocks—that all you got to do is own the S&P 500 passively. And that's great, and actually, there's nothing terribly wrong with owning the S&P 500 passively. But a couple of things to think about.

It subjects you almost completely to US stocks, and therefore, you assume a risk. The risk is that things may happen with America that end up being not so good. If you're comfortable taking that risk and you think you're sure you know what you're doing, that's good. But in the long term—in the very long term—going way back once upon a time, US and non-US stocks end up with very, very similar returns, just these wildly changing, vacillating periods of when they are generating superiority versus inferiority. And those periods can run ten, 15 years—long enough to make people believe they're permanent. Fact is, if you think about the makeup of countries, the U.S. is the citadel of innovation and growth, and particularly technology. But what happens is the timing of returns from that come in big, long spurts, and you get periods where that worked really, really well, and then you get periods where it lags. And you know that if you stop and think about it, because you can think about things like the Tech bubble that burst in 2000, led to the next bull market not being led by Tech, for a good, strong seven years. Oh, big surprise.

What including foreign does, depending on how you want to do it, is it gives you more opportunities, more things to choose from, more potential diversification. And, if you were fully globally arrayed, lower total volatility. Because the kinds of stocks that dominate the US world are not the kind of stocks that dominate the non-US world. It's really simple. I'm going to give you another example. If what you want to do is own nothing but Tech, You're going to be largely overweight in US stocks, because the US is the epicenter of technology. If you just take the largest stocks in the world that are under 50 years old. Not all, but almost all of them come from America. That's that innovation thing, right? On the other hand, in America, you got a lot of stocks that are public in those categories that go "poof" too. So—but, if you want to do Tech, the US is going to be where most of what you've got— but, then also, there's things like Taiwan Semiconductor and ASML and they're outside of America. So you get more opportunities to be prepared to think foreign. And then you run into these periods again, like this year, where the US in a bull market is lagging the non-US badly. And, of course, outside the US some countries doing much, much better. Whereas, in 2024, the US was one of the four best-performing stock countries in the world, it still wasn't the very best, where in 2025, it's dropped way down the list and lagging badly. You then come to the question— and I don't know the answer to this, I'm not proposing an answer, I'm asking a question—as I've said before, we've often had these periods where US stocks lead for many years and then lagged for quite a few years. Have we just entered a period where US stocks are going to lag for quite a few years? Don't know the answer. You can have an opinion on that. You can't have a certainty on all that.

And when you don't include foreign, You're taking the risk that US lags. You're taking the risk—let's say you are an extreme conservative Republican, or an extreme liberal Democrat. So, if you were an extreme liberal Democrat, when President Trump got elected twice, you probably would have thought it would have been terrible. It didn't turn out to be that way so much. But in the same, if you're an extreme conservative Republican, you probably thought it was just terrible when President Obama was elected or President Biden was elected. Didn't turn out to be that way, but if you're really convinced it's going to be terrible, foreign's a pretty good thing to add to throw into the mix. The fact is, foreign just provides more opportunities, more diversification. Going fully global reduces volatility. If you look outside of America, This is where you get big weights in Industrials and big weights in banks compared to America. And so, in a period where banks do really, really well, you actually do better with foreign than with America, because banks are a lower weight in America. Can you find banks in America? Of course you can. Can you find all kind of stuff all over the world? Of course you can. But the reality is, foreign gives you the broadest menu. And in the very long term, growth and value, big stocks and small stocks, US and non-US, ought to all end up with pretty similar returns. So, the best way to get to those returns with the lowest volatility is including outside of your own country. And I would say that to you whether you're an American or from any other country.

Now, let me just make one more point. I don't think your goal is probably about getting the highest return. Your goal should be about getting the highest probability of getting a very good return. And that comes more from being global than from being in any single country.

But thank you for listening to me. I hope you liked this debunk. If you want to read the details of it, they're in the book. Thank you very much for listening, and I hope you tune in next month when I cover another debunky from the book. Thank you very much. Have a good month. Take care. I very much hope you enjoyed this video as part of my series on debunking common market myths. To watch more videos like this, click the link on the screen and make sure to subscribe to Fisher Investments' YouTube channel. Thanks so much for listening to me.