You should invest like the Masters golf tournament
How to keep your head down, how to swing through the ball, and even how you should be investing.
The last one is according to Jeff Kleintop, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, who said investors should balance their portfolio much like the Masters field composition.
In a meeting with Business Insider, Kleintop disputed the notion presented by Vanguard founder Jack Bogle that investing in the S&P 500 is the same as investing abroad.
"There's a reason the Masters is the best gold tournament in the world," Kleintop told us. "They could make it just Americans, but then it wouldn't be as good. By allowing everyone from around the world to compete, that's what makes it so great."
Kleintop said this is the same for investors. Sure, you could get exposure from US company sales to other markets, but you're missing out on the growth of plenty of other companies as well.
"Companies closest to consumers that are the ones that do the best," said Kleintop. "So investing in companies abroad means you get more of that growth."
Much like the MSCI world index, said Kleintop, the Masters has about 50% Americans, roughly 15% apiece from the Eurozone and emerging markets, 10% from the UK, and 10% from Asia-Pacific.
Now most every advisor or strategist suggests a diversified portfolio (even Bogle is suggesting one, though a bit more indirectly), but this is an interesting way to picture how the makeup of investments should look.
On the one hand it opens you up to risks, see Brazil over the past few years, but it also gives you an opportunity to catch incredible growth as well.
Kleintop thinks you have to take the good with the bad, and in the end you'll most likely come out ahead.
So on Sunday when you're watching someone slip on the green jacket, take away a lesson other than how to read the green.