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.