One of the reasons to invest abroad is to
diversify currency risk.
A global portfolio
diversifies currency risk, and provides the US investor some protection against a declining dollar.
However, the counter-argument also is true; i.e., international investing
diversifies your currency risk — as a US investor, it provides some protection against the risk of a declining dollar.
Not exact matches
The ability to
diversify your investments and (somewhat) mitigate non-systemic
risk in your portfolio is irresistible to many investors — especially when you can apply the advantages of mutual funds to other asset classes, such as
currencies.
If you accept
currency risk then why concentrate in the US when you can just as easily buy a fund
diversified across the entire world?
While we have no reason to suspect anything untoward, we would recommend that Whaleclub users
diversify their trading with other providers to protect against the obvious
risks we have all seen in the digital and crypto
currency space.
These countries are already at the stage where they are forced to sell their dollars for euros and other Group of 10 countries»
currencies and gold to
diversify their foreign exchange
risk, which adds to the dollar's decline, he says.
The investments are predominantly U.S. dollar - denominated securities, but also include foreign
currency - denominated securities in order to
diversify risk.
We find that Canadian investors benefit from retaining
currency risk in international equities, as foreign
currency acts a natural
diversifier that can reduce overall volatility
That's what Dimensional Fund Advisors does with its Five - Year Global Fixed Income Fund: «This enables us to gain the benefits that come from
diversifying across many countries without measurably increasing
currency risk.»
Investing outside of your
currency zone allows you to
diversify more, but also introduces
currency risks, which require a whole other level of understanding.
For those of you interested in
diversifying through foreign
currency, you'll be happy to know that EverBank offers several relatively lower
risk options in this area.
While global equity funds can be volatile and involve more
risk than Canadian investments — depending on the state of world affairs,
currency fluctuations and other economic and political factors — they
diversify against any type of country or political
risk an investor might encounter.
You also need to
diversify your holdings within those asset classes and hold, in the case of a stock portfolio, a variety of stocks — from risky to less risky, in different
currencies, in different industries — to reduce your
risk exposure.
Yet for De Goey, the
currency risk of EEM is still greater than having less
diversified holdings in a BRIC fund».
Even though it has a 20 % return over the past year and is well
diversified, Canadians will expose themselves to
currency risk since it trades in U.S. dollars.
However, I would note the more recent revival of mercantilism & a new willingness of many countries to
diversify into real assets (rather than
currencies / bonds)-- this could pose a new and more substantial / elevated
risk of decline for the dollar as a reserve
currency (vs. the historical example of sterling).
While I do write / tweet occasionally about FX &
currency risk, and also think it's just as important a component of your portfolio to monitor &
diversify, I don't actually include it in my benchmark / disclosed portfolio returns... and I've done that since day one here, so I'm not cherry - picking!
Emerging market funds, however, have greater
currency risks but also significant
risk from government instability and less
diversified economies.
The Forward Rate Bias Index product uses more
diversified allocations without active
risk control and similarly aims to buy selected higher interest rate developed market
currencies and sell selected lower interest rate
currencies.
«Investors can only exchange an amount of one
currency with an equivalent value of another, which is problematic because it makes it more difficult for them to
diversify their portfolio and avoid unnecessary
risk.