I think there are ambiguities in statements like this which can mislead people. Here is a fair comparison by recent decade:The advisor simply mentioned Int'I underperformed US over the last few decades, which it did.
The 1970s: ex-US ahead
The 1980s: ex-US ahead
The 1990s: US ahead
2000s: ex-US ahead
2010s: US ahead
2020: TBD, but US currently ahead
US has not outperformed ex-US in each recent decade. But what some people do, here and elsewhere, is calculate averages for periods which went back and forth. And then they say something like that the higher average asset overperformed "over" that period.
And if it was clear that just meant an average, OK. But I think often people hearing something like that misinterpret that to mean some sort of consistent effect, as opposed to an average taken over a lot of back and forths.
Statistics: Posted by NiceUnparticularMan — Wed Feb 11, 2026 2:39 pm — Replies 29 — Views 1427