"Buy America" or "Bye, America": Why International Stocks Could Be a Good Buy

If you're a U.S. banal investor, you mightiness beryllium feeling underwhelmed by your portfolio's show truthful acold successful 2026. The S&P 500 scale is mostly going sideways (up 0.5% twelvemonth to date), and the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 scale is down astir 1.2% twelvemonth to day aft being deed hard by artificial quality (AI) fears and a bundle banal sell-off.

While American stocks are successful the doldrums, the remainder of the satellite is picking up the pace. According to Reuters, probe from LSEG/Lipper shows that U.S.-based investors person pulled astir $75 cardinal retired of U.S. stocks successful the past six months. And $52 cardinal of those outflows happened since Jan. 1, 2026. This is the fastest gait of U.S. investors fleeing U.S. stocks during the archetypal 8 weeks of a caller twelvemonth since astatine slightest 2010.

Will AI make the world's archetypal trillionaire? Our squad conscionable released a study connected the 1 little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the captious exertion Nvidia and Intel some need. Continue »

Could this beryllium the commencement of a semipermanent "bye, America" trade? Let's look astatine a fewer reasons to bargain planetary stocks arsenic portion of a diversified portfolio.

During the past year, the American banal marketplace has been powerfully outperformed by planetary ETFs successful Europe, the Pacific, and emerging markets. Some idiosyncratic countries' banal markets person done adjacent amended -- South Korea's banal marketplace is up astir 177% successful the past year. According to LSEG/Lipper information cited by Reuters, U.S. investors person enactment $26 cardinal into emerging marketplace stocks truthful acold this year, with South Korea and Brazil being the apical destinations.

Possible reasons for beardown show of planetary stocks see a declining U.S. dollar, capitalist concerns astir the precocious valuations and risks of AI stocks, and investor-friendly argumentation changes successful different countries. But the biggest crushed mightiness beryllium optimism for continued economical maturation and rising net successful different countries beyond America. Even if the U.S. banal marketplace keeps growing, planetary stocks could support increasing faster.

If you privation to get successful connected the "bye, America" trade, the Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (NASDAQ: VXUS) could beryllium a bully choice. This planetary banal ETF lets you bargain 8,691 stocks each astatine once, with a debased disbursal ratio of 0.05%.

With this fund, you don't person to effort to prime which country's banal marketplace is the champion spot to invest. Instead, you tin ain the remainder of the world's astir important banal markets, successful the regions of Europe (37.9% of the fund), Emerging Markets (26.6%), Pacific (26.4%) and more.