Friday, September 13, 2002

Geographic Diversification In Investing

There are so many things in our everyday lives that we are looking at differently now, after 9/11.

Financial Journalist Andrew Feinberg captured the new way that we must look at portfolio diversity best when he wrote, “In the post-9/11 world, I fear that our painstakingly diversified portfolio is actually dangerously concentrated. I mean, we are overweighted in Manhattan big-time.”

This is something new in investing, but a very valid point in the world we are living in today. Every analyst will preach non-stop about the importance of your portfolio being diversified. In yesterday’s world, diversifying amongst different countries, different sectors, different companies, different sized-companies and different company philosophies was enough, but with terrorism threatening U.S. cities, investors even need to diversify where their investments lie in the U.S.

Business in Manhattan literally ground to a halt on 9/11 and some investors learned that their diversified portfolios were extremely heavily invested in companies that resided in Manhattan. Investors need to check their portfolios to ensure that their U.S. investments are spread out over the geography of the nation as well.

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