I have updated the article that lists some global ETFs and includes P/E ratios and dividend yields as well as the management expense ratios.
It would be nice if there were some regions of the world that looked like clear bargains. But I did not find that to be very much the case although China looks attractive.
My next article is going to look at the Canadian and Global asset classes and ETFs and build a table that could be used to put together an ETF portfolio which includes the major asset classes as well as some amount of global diversification. This may be useful particularly to newer investors who want to get started investing with ETFs rather than individual stocks. And it may also help those of us with a portfolio of individual stocks to think about possibly adding some level of global diversification.
Financial theory is clear that diversification is generally a good thing. In the absence of an ability to pick stocks (and at InvestorFriend our history suggests some ability there) or an ability to pick winning regions of the world (with the most attractive stock prices given growth) one would diversify perhaps as widely as possible. However, it is not as clear to me how much global diversification is called for when currency risk is considered. A widely diversified U.S. investor could concentrate fully half of their equities in the U.S. just based on market representation. And that takes care of a lot of currency risk. But I have never been a believer that Canadian investors should take their Canadian equity exposure way down to anything remotely close to the 3% or whatever that Canada represents of world equity markets.
I am not going to suggest what precise exposure Canadians should take to U.S. and world markets but I will include in my article some thinking that may help. In my portfolio, I have had extremely little to almost no exposure to companies outside of Canada and the U.S. and I have not regretted that lack of exposure. But, I do think there is room for some such exposure. In particular, index investors (as opposed to stock pickers) should probably have that exposure. In the case of picking individual stocks it is more difficult to become familiar with foreign companies and so more home-bias seems natural.