How much time are you going to spend thinking about the next stock you buy? If you're like most Americans, the answer is "not much." According to research from ING, "the average American spends more time researching a new refrigerator than they do stocks."
Now, we all need a good place to keep our beer cold, but that's ludicrous ... and it gets worse.
A recent Bankrate.com survey revealed that just 16% of Americans invest according to an asset allocation plan. This means that 84% of us are blindly buying stocks without any regard for what we may or may not already own or hoping someone else does it right for us!
Why this is bad
The consequence of this is that individual investors get overexposed to certain "hot" sectors. Think back to 2000. Four of the five most widely owned stocks were tied to the Internet bubble -- AT&T
This is why it's important to invest according to an asset allocation plan. Not only will it protect your portfolio from short-term volatility in a specific company, country, sector, or asset class, but it will help you make more money over the long term as a result.
How to think about asset allocation in 2010
We recently asked our members at Motley Fool Global Gains to review their asset allocation and let us know what they need to get exposure to in 2010. To help them make that determination, we updated our global asset allocation guidelines. While every individual needs an asset allocation plan tailored specifically to his or her situation, here's how our Global Gains guidelines break down for the typical "aggressive" investor.
- We want 85% if your investable assets in stocks and 15% in bonds.
- We want 60% invested within the United States and 40% internationally.
- Within that international exposure, we want 75% invested in emerging markets and 25% in developed markets.
Some will look at those guidelines and call them overly aggressive. We disagree. They're based on our market outlook and valuation analysis and synthesize the work of top investment minds such as Warren Buffett, Mohammed el-Erian, and Jeremy Siegel. As I've written before, the dollar is doomed, and the top markets over the next decade will be currently emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil.
Is your asset allocation up to snuff?
Unfortunately, Americans today are dangerously underexposed to the rest of the world's markets, with one survey showing that U.S. investors have just 6% of their savings invested outside of the United States. Even our Global Gains members, a very worldly group, are finding that their portfolios aren't yet sufficiently exposed to Africa and Latin America.
What are you missing? I encourage you to find out.
Put your portfolio to the test
When it comes to calculating your foreign exposure, the key is not to look at where the companies you own are headquartered, but rather where they do business. Take Teva Pharmaceutical
Similarly, although we all think of Microsoft
Now consider the stocks in your own portfolio. Do any of them offer foreign exposure? Do you own any companies that have made doing business in fast-growing China or Brazil an important part of their strategy.
If the answers to these questions are "no," then stocks that do possess these traits are the stocks you need to buy now.
In sum
With an asset allocation plan and additional foreign exposure, your portfolio will be better positioned to profit over the next decade. If you need some help putting those things in place, come join us at Motley Fool Global Gains, where you can find a variety of asset allocation resources, including our updated asset allocation report, as well as dozens of market-beating international stock recommendations.
Click here for more information.
Tim Hanson is co-advisor of Motley Fool Global Gains and also needs more exposure to Africa. He does not own shares of any company mentioned. Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. Motley Fool Options recommended a diagonal call on Microsoft. You don't need to read the Fool's disclosure policy now, but you can peruse it at your leisure.
