Country Allocation Has Been Extremely Important For Equity Investors

Somewhat surprisingly, the percentage of stocks that outperform the MSCI World Index over a short-term horizon, say 200 days, stays in a fairly tight range of approximately 40-60% in general. Currently, only 45% of stocks in the MSCI World Index have managed to outperformed the MSCI World Index over the past 200 days. What is more interesting, however, is how important country allocation has been in finding stocks that have outperformed. Only three out of 24 (12.5%) developed country indices have more than 50% of its stocks outperforming the MSCI World Index. Those three country indices are Australia (57%), Hong Kong (74%), and USA (67%). 17 out of the 24 (70.8%) country indices have less than one-third of its stocks outperforming the MSCI World Index. For comparison purposes, consider that nine out of the 24 (37.5%) industry groups have more than 50% of its stocks outperforming and only five out of  the 24 (20.8%) industry groups have less than one-third of its stocks outperforming the MSCI World Index. Investors have been far more likely to pick the correct industry group allocation than the correct country allocation this year. Some of the more interesting charts on these stats are below.