Sunniva Kolostyak: Welcome to Morningstar's personal finance minutes. This week, we are looking at whether home country bias is bad for investing.
So, home country bias is when investors are overexposed to domestic equities in their investment portfolio. Historically, it used to happen because these were the companies people had access to information on. Now, we have access to endless information, but the effect is still the same, and people tend to invest in the companies they know and sometimes have an emotional connection to.
Of course, there are both pros and cons for home bias. Here are some of the positives. You're avoiding currency risk by spending local currency. There could also be tax benefits to keeping assets within your borders. And markets are increasingly moving in tandem, so global diversification does not offer the same benefits as it once used to.
On the negative side, there's the issue of diversification across sectors. The UK market, for example, does not have the same exposure to technology as the US does. And we're still impacted by our own economies, and in poor economic conditions, both our jobs and portfolio could be at risk. So, by ensuring our eggs are spread across different baskets, a significant portion of risk is mitigated.
For Morningstar, I'm Sunniva Kolostyak.