Country Basket

We’re picking daisies…marigolds…lilies...

Say we want to fill a portfolio basket with just stocks representing the overall financial health of Italy. Is italy... healthy? Well, they smoke a lot. Drink lots of wine. Eat a bunch of pasta.

But there always seems to be a woman from some small village who’s celebrating her 117th birthday. Hmm.

A country basket is just an index fund of stocks representing a country. Like, if we’re doin’ Korea (South... the one not run by the crazy dictator with a strange fetish for dogs), we’re gonna have in that basket some Samsung, a load of Dae Woo, a hunk of Hyundai, and some nice barbecue on the side.

That’d be our Korean country basket, and it’s a good basket to fill if you’re just bullish on a country, but not really sure where exactly to place your bets. It’s like…instead of trying to decide between roulette, or poker, or slots...you just bet on the entire casino.

Buona fortuna.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is a Country Basket (Index...30 Views

00:00

Finance, a la shmoop. What is a country basket index fund?

00:07

All right we're picking daisies, marigolds, lilies so uh how do we [Pictures of flowers]

00:12

rephrase in Italian? Like, we want to fill a portfolio basket with just stocks [Pouring a glass of red wine]

00:17

representing the overall financial health of Italy. Is Italy healthy? While

00:23

they smoke a lot they drink a lot of wine they eat a bunch of pasta but there

00:27

always seems to be a woman from some small village who's celebrating her [Old woman at a birthday party]

00:30

117th birthday over there. Well a country basket is just an index fund of

00:36

stocks representing a country. Like we're doing Korea... South we're gonna have

00:42

in that basket dunno some Samsung, a load of Daewoo, a hunk of Hyundai and some [Company stocks being added to the basket]

00:48

nice barbecue on the side. That'd be our Korean country basket and it's a good

00:52

basket to fill if you're just bullish on a country but not really sure which

00:56

flower on which to place your bets. It's like instead of trying to decide between [The stocks in the basket turn into flowers]

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roulette or poker or slots... Well you just buy stock in Las Vegas

01:05

Sands you know you bet on the entire casino, and bueno Fortuna you know good [Someone checking their cards in a casino]

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luck there pal, doesn't the house always win? Yeah so why do people keep going there?...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)