Have you ever thought of investing outside of where you live? I mean, actually owning property, stocks, real estate and bond portfolios, and other investments in another country.  When we think about investing, most people think local but as investors, we have to think bigger than that. Listen, if you are an investor that only invests in your own country you are seriously restricting your investing potential. 

So not a lot of you know I was born and raised in Jamaica, but these days I live between Jamaica and Toronto. I left Jamaica in 2014 to do my MBA in Finance in Canada and after finishing my MBA, I started working on Bay Street in Toronto at one of the largest banks in the country where I was managing over $100 billion Canadian dollars. 

Now, while living in Jamaica, personally I would do investments in Jamaican companies and only consider some investments in other Caribbean companies because as a portfolio manager, we were focused a lot on Jamaican Stock, Jamaican Bonds, Jamaica Corporate Bonds, and some Caribbean investments. This was because of the BOJ regulations where local companies were not allowed to invest too much money internationally, as such, I didn’t know much about investing internationally. 

However, when I moved to Canada and started investing as a portfolio manager on a more global scale, that’s when I was able to realize how broad investments can be. That’s when I realized “how di ting set”. Investing globally is really when you get to experience the benefits of diversification and start building consistent lasting returns in your portfolio.

Many people tend to invest where they live because they invest in what they know. Because you don’t know what lies outside of your country you restrict your investments. These days, due to the pandemic and overall globalization, it is much easier to invest outside of your country. Information is readily at your fingertips because of the internet and you have a lot of financial educators and influencers, like myself, who are providing you with a lot of information about financial news and updates outside of your country. Technology has made information readily accessible, so you need to start thinking more broader by getting investments outside of your home country. 

So, why am I bothering you with all this encouragement to invest globally? 

Because when you invest globally you get built-in diversification and your overall investment values won’t fluctuate as much. Diversifying your investments isn’t limited to the country you live in, as a matter of fact, most investors who buy stocks in foreign companies point to increased diversity as their key motive. Built-in diversification means that if things aren’t looking good economically in your home country, because you have investments internationally, overall you end up better off than the person who puts all of their eggs in one basket and only invests in their home country. 

Going into the future the investor who is going to be extremely wealthy is the investor who has investments across the world because some countries now are in very rapid growth. Think about China just reopening, they’re going to experience rapid growth, so if you have investments that get exposed to Chinese companies, right now you could be doing well in terms of performance. 

So the lesson here is that I want everyone to think about how to get diversified exposure. Ask yourself, “how can I get investments outside of my home country?” And begin to look for opportunities globally, because I want you to take advantage of the international market and not just look for opportunities locally in your country.

Do you invest internationally? If you don’t, have you ever thought about capitalizing on international investment opportunities? Hit reply or drop me a note in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.