Why 'Home Bias' is Shortsighted

Authored by: Vontobel Asset Management’s Quality Growth Investment Team

This white paper, originally released in April 2019, is updated quarterly. The current edition includes data as of December 31, 2022.

A world of shifting performance among regions and countries makes it exceedingly difficult to pick winners at all the right times over the long run. It may also favor those who simply choose to go global.

Look at a world map from just half a century ago, and you’ll easily spot its continents in the same locations as they are today. Yet the economic face of it—a dimension not captured by cartographers—has transformed beyond recognition: Levels of commerce and integration among people, businesses, and nations are immeasurably higher, as if any divisions of land have simply dissipated.

This process of globalization has been going on for quite some time. But we believe it has reached levels that should prompt investors to avoid “home bias” and to think beyond their borders in pursuit of attractive performance in the longer run—for a number of reasons.

The globalization of company revenues

First, with a quick look around the world, investors can find strong companies on both sides of the hemisphere. What’s more, these companies draw substantially on both local and foreign markets for business. Consider two eye-opening facts in recent data:

• The top 10 U.S. companies by market capitalization generated an average of about 44% of their revenues outside the U.S.¹
• The top 10 companies by market capitalization throughout developed markets outside the United States and Canada generated approximately 30% of their revenues, on average, in the U.S.¹

Indeed, thriving companies aren’t bound by geography—not in where they are headquartered nor from where they derive their income—and reflect an opportunity set for investors that is meaningfully distributed across major regions.

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