I want to diversify my equities exposure internationally (i.e outside the US). I want to align my approach with some sort of long-term investing thesis, although I am aware that GDP growth is not associated with returns. I'm curious about what Mustachians think about the following countries / ETFs. Anyone who lives there want to chime in?
China - FXI
pros - growth, global dominance in manufacturing
cons - historically, investments underperform because the gains somehow don't make it to shareholders, political risk,
Australia - EWA
pros - historically rock-solid financial, political, legal, and currency systems, low corruption.
cons - real estate bubble? dependence on China.
Brazil - EWZ
pros - has gotten cheap, demographics, recession is over
cons - oil dependency, corruption
India - INDA or PIN
pros - demographics, recent growth, recent reforms
cons - cultural issues like religious nationalism, next war with Pakistan, caste system, corruption
I'm not particularly interested in the following countries for the following reasons:
Russia - corruption, pending invasion of Ukraine
Canada - US dependency/correlation - why bother?
Most of Europe - pending euro collapse, standoff with Russia
Most of Africa - corruption
Japan - low potential growth rate due to demographics, pending conflict with China