Global Investing (A Special Report): Expanding Strategies --- No Boundaries: Investing globally means thinking globally
Corrections & Amplifications</br></br>ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS Corp. reported a profit, not a loss, in the first quarter of 1997. It was incorrectly reported on page R7 of the Global Investing report yesterday that the company reported a loss. (WSJ June 27, 1997)</br></br>Think global. Go global.</br></br>Sounds simple. But a small number of brokerage firms and investors are beginning to rethink precisely what that means. Instead of determining how much they want to allocate to the U.S. stock market, how much to foreign bonds and so on, they believe it's time to look at investment strategies from a more integrated global perspective.</br></br>In other words, don't split investments among countries as a whole, using overseas markets to gamble on dizzying gains or to hedge against U.S. losses. The new strategy: Pour money into the companies that dominate their industries on a global scale, regardless of their location or how many eggs you have in one country's basket. Theoretically, since these companies have world-wide reach, a downtick in any one market won't hit them as hard. If investors in the U.S. aren't buying, for example, overseas investors will buoy the stock. Or if the U.S. economy enters a slump, the company's global power will let it expand operations elsewhere to recoup the losses.