I think this is a great thread, and thanks for the good suggestions. I haven’t bought any stocks outside the U.S., although I am from Austria and have a brokerage account in Germany. It makes perfect sense though, since one has to take opportunities as they come, and in the U.S. they are limited, simply because U.S. stocks are popular. I have had a few ADRs and ETFs, e.g. EWM, which have run away from me for now. But I know I will get a chance to buy something again.
Often it is difficult to invest in foreign markets, since one either doesn’t have the knowledge or doesn’t have an account.
Regarding the first, I, for example, was reluctant to invest in my home country since I only knew U.S. stocks and how to research those. This is a good thing, since it doesn’t make sense to buy what you don’t know. But a few years ago I saw that there is an ETF for Austria, and I tried to find information. It seemed that the P/E was about 10. I thought that this wasn’t great since people in Austria are usually lazy, and so there won’t be much growth or excitement that would deserve more than 10. But speaking as a value investor, a P/E of 10 is pretty good, especially if it is stable earnings, and if they had a long time of consolidating. Then this can improve, and also often after a while of nothing happening, some good news comes along. Austria started to benefit from the east expansion of the EU. And while the earnings rose, the P/E rose, and one always got the earnings along the way, and it would have been an incredible gain to hold on for a while (chart).
I totally missed it, but it showed me that I should always keep looking for similar inexpensive opportunities.
