Invest Globally
Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return. Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land. (Ecclesiastes 11:1-2)
Imagine you are Japanese and the year is 1989. Your economy is booming. Companies like Sony and Toshiba are the darlings of the global stock market and are firing on all cylinders. You have everything you need financially. Your job is secure and the future looks bright.
When you go to select investments for your retirement funds, you naturally choose investments in your home country. Your country is prosperous. The Japanese market is booming and you feel international investments are too risky for you. You want to invest in what makes you most comfortable.
But you were caught off guard when your home country economy began to falter. After a few down years, you remained optimistic that a recovery would come soon. As the next two decades slowly passed, your optimism gradually faded away along with the profits of Sony, Toshiba, and others. Your investments actually lost money while the global economy expanded significantly.
How can this be? You invested in your home country because the economy was strong and the long-term prospects seemed to be good. You truly felt they would generate a better investment return than overseas companies.
There is a lesson to be learned here: Guard yourself from home country bias. Don’t be afraid to invest globally. God has called you to steward your investments and you should own the best investments, wherever they are located.
When you compare recent returns of the US stock market with that of international markets, what will you find? In recent years, US markets have performed significantly better than overseas markets. The “experts'' will tell you that you are being foolish to invest anywhere other than the United States. Some of these same “experts” encouraged you to put all of your money in tech companies in the late 1990s. They also declared the sky's the limit for financial firms leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
We are stewards while on this earth, so when we invest His money we should do the research and invest in the future, not the past. We should choose the best investments, whether they are in our backyard or on the other side of the world. We should invest globally and stay diversified.
Lord Jesus, give me the wisdom to steward your money wisely and to invest in the best opportunities, wherever they are located.
