Are you invested in markets other than the US ? If not, you should be...

The vast majority of people saving in their 401k and retirement portfolios are investing only in the US stock markets. To me, this is myopic, if not downright negligent. The GDP growth rates for the US, for the foreseeable future, is going to be in the 1.5% to 2.5% annual rate at best. The countries with the best GDP growth rates, which are both high and substantial enough to be meaningful, are China and India, and to a lesser extent, the European Union. Their forecasted GDP growth rates are 7% to 9.5% for atleast the next 3 decades. 

 Below is the forecasted GDP for the coming decades through 2050 -

Top 10 GDP Countries 2000-2050

This table shows the top 10 countries by GDP (Gross Domestic Product)expressed in billions of US$, for the years 2000, 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050, listed by projected 2050 rank. 
SOURCE: Goldman Sachs 

2050 Rank		Country Name	2000GDP	2010 GDP	2020 GDP	2030 GDP	2040 GDP	2050GDP
1	CHN	China	1078	2998	7070	14312	26439	44453
*	EU	European Union *	9395	12965	16861	21075	28323	35288
2	USA	United States	9825	13271	16415	20833	27229	35165
3	IND	India	469	929	2104	4935	12367	27803
4	JPN	Japan	4176	4601	5221	5810	6039	6673
5	BRA	Brazil	762	668	1333	2189	3740	6074
6	RUS	Russia	391	847	1741	2980	4467	5870
7	UK	United Kingdom	1437	1876	2285	2649	3201	3782
8	GER	Germany	1875	2212	2524	2697	3147	3603
9	FRA	France	1311	1622	1930	2267	2668	3148
10	ITA	Italy	1078	1337	1553	1671	1788	2061

* European Union GDP, which I calculated myself, is shown for comparison, but not ranked.

A well allocated investment portfolio would do the following -

 1. Allocate the portfolio among countries based on their share of World GDP, weighted in favor of countries with a high rate of GDP growth.

 2. Allocate funds between stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds and cash. In other words, diversify based on investor's risk and return criteria.

 While the above allocation would work for both the aggressive and the defensive investor, the selection of index funds or individual stocks would differ for the two types of investors.

Investment accounts, 401K retirement accounts, etc. should be rebalanced now  to benefit from growth in the emerging markets and the EU in the coming decades. If you are not doing this yourself but would like to, I would be glad to discuss this further. Shoot me an email at RDhawan at sbcglobal dot net. Later !