I keep wanting to put more into international, but man, it's been lagging forever. It's got to come back at some point, right? Right?
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Your guess is as good as mine but as I said, a DECADE! A fucking decade. It can't do it for another decade can it? Can it?!?!
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It all depends on what the mutual fund is. Most 401s have one mutual fund for international stocks, and looking even at the US, if an international fund consisted of the international equivalent of GE, Steel Stocks, and utility companies it would lag hard.

I'd want to see what the prior performance was or at least some more info before I stuck much in there.

Most companies are much more refined about US companies.
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How old are you? I think you're not old enough to have been an investor in the 80s when Japan was taking over the world. Well, it's still down 50 percent from its peak ... in 1989. I've been wary of international stocks for years because of this, and can't figure out why Japanese stocks aren't a huge bargain.


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I thought of putting some more into the International, but I haven't seen much evidence that it will produce a high return rate, so I'm just skeptical about adding more into it. The C fund has been killing it for me though, so I'm good for now. I'll eventually will add more into the I Fund if it starts to show some promise. The last two months though, the I Fund got me a gain of 740, which is higher than the C or S Fund, so maybe it may start producing?
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Well, the good news is that it has recovered since the 2008 crash, but the question begs, will it now continue to climb steady? Will it ever reach the peak that it once reached in 1989? Or will it crash again?
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I was not alive in the early 80's.

Still probably shitting my pants by the late 80's.

I do understand your point. It's a small tilt to my portfolio that will either pay off in better gains, or if not, at least it's still a rather small portion of my portfolio when considering the difference between 10% or 20% in foreign funds.
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The fund I invest in is the T.Rowe Price International fund.

Recent performance.
1 Year 19.05%
3 Years 4.29%
5 Years 9.88%

10 largest holdings:
AIA Group
Bayer
CK Hutchison Holdings
Nestle
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone
Priceline
Roche Holding
Shire
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Tencent Holdings
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*******

Do your homework, though, your IRA may be doing better than 7.

How long are they amortized?
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It's easy to argue that 1989 was a bubble, but even if you eliminate that, it's essentially been stagnant since the early 1990s.

I don't get it. It's not like fly-ridden people are starving in the streets. You'd think that even stagnation would produce a mild gain every year just due to inflation. I keep pondering buying in on Japan, but after 20 years, what's changing for the positive? I'm mystified.
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I think perhaps the Japanese asset price bubble that popped in 1990-1992, and they either put effective tight controls on it, or is skittish to even consider it again?

Just reading it over on Wikipedia. I know Wikipedia isn't exactly a greatest source, but it's something to look at.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japane...t_price_bubble
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My understanding (I AM NOT AN EXPERT and college was A LONG time ago) was that the Japanese tried to fight the crash by lowering interest rates. It failed to stimulate the economy and would wreck it if they raised it - so it sits.

It worries me about the US economy because our interest rate has been in the crapper largely since 9/11. That's gaining on 2 decades.

EDIT: Looks like they raised it up in 06, but it has been in essentially 0 since 08 so a decade. That's a long time. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS
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I definitely didn't take the right kinds of college courses to understand this stuff. Based on what you said, it sounds like they shifted the economic transmission into first gear and then the gearshift knob came off. So I wonder what has to happen for it to start moving again - it sounds like it has to come from something other than policy.
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While Modern Portfolio Theory would suggest that a well rounded portfolio would consist of I holdings, the fact that both Germany and Japan have flirted with negative interest rate bonds in the past few years ( I believe the Bund in fact has had a few terms with negative returns) speaks to their central bank's outlook on inflation. If there is no inflation occurring, you won't be able to capture the gains on their equities either.

Ultimately it depends on your risk tolerance, objectives, and your time until retirement. If you are in your 20s or early 30s and self directing, with a taste for a bit of risk, I would forgo the I fund and do US equities. The large cap stuff will capture inflation and do well in a bull market, while the small cap will grab you some nice gains theoretically.

I have a taste for throwing in some fixed income, or at least equities that pay strong dividends (check out VYM by Vanguard). When you reinvest proceeds during a market downturn you can strongly improve your dollar cost average over the long turn. VYM has the added benefit of performing well in a bull market as well because it's all large cap.

If y'all want, I can dig up some nice textbook type info why this is a good idea in your portfolio.
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You've got it backwards. They shifted to high gear and burned up the clutch.

Theory is if there are low interest rates industry will expand because money is cheap. Unemployment will fall GDP will rise. Extended periods of growth leads to inflation. Raising interest rates will cause businesses to slow expansion and cook off the economy and wait for the market to catch up with GDP growth.

There are a series of interrelated curves (labor, money supply, GDP, and some other shit) that proof it all out but that is the 30,000 ft overview of intermediate macroeconomics.

So what Japan did was try to spur growth through interest rates and it didn't do anything. So they've fired their bullets.

Again, I'm not an expert, but I'd postulate that what happened here was interest got cheap and business did things other than directly increase production

1. Sit on the cash (see apple)
2. Invest in automation - not sending money home, wrecking the velocity of money
3. Invest overseas - taking it out of the equation completely thus thoroughly wrecking the velocity of money.
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