From Chris Mayer, chief investment strategist, Bonner Private Portfolio: The U.S. stock market is gracing all-time highs.
But look abroad and you get a very different picture…
As you can see, many foreign markets are in or near bear market levels (defined as a drop of 20% or more from the high).
Bear markets are a great time to pick up great assets on the cheap. So if you want to find good value for your dollar, you should look abroad.
In Bonner Private Portfolio, we currently own just five stocks. One is Swiss and one is French. Thanks to Europe’s troubled markets, we were able to purchase these stocks at about half their all-time highs. Yet they are global companies that do most of their business outside of their home countries.
You can buy these stocks just as easily as you would buy IBM or Microsoft. No fancy brokerage account needed. The public disclosures are in English. They are not hard to follow. And they have a long history of paying dividends and are rock solid financially.
My senior analyst and I continue to fish in these beaten-up markets for more Private Portfolio bargains…
We just returned from a 10-day trip through Italy. Italy is one of the cheaper stock markets in the world, based on a weighting of various factors like price to earnings.
The Italians often get unfairly pegged as lazy Southern Europeans who don’t want to work. In Milan, we visited the stock exchange. The sculpture in front of it probably doesn’t help this image:
It stands before the Italian Stock Exchange.
But the truth is the Italians put in more hours than the Germans. (As one of my friends joked, “The Italians love capitalism. Look at the mafia.”) And Northern Italy is on par with Germany in terms of productivity.
Moreover, there are some great companies and brands in Italy, all based in the north: Luxottica (maker of Ray-Ban sunglasses), Ferrari, and Giorgio Armani to name a few.
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Right now, we’re investigating a basket of Italian stocks with fantastic, undervalued assets. And our field trip yielded some interesting insights about the broader markets as well… We’ll be sharing these with our partners in the next issue of Bonner Private Portfolio.
The recommendation I leave you with today is this: The U.S. stock markets are at all-time highs. If you want to find bargain stocks, go abroad.
Reeves’ Note: Bill Bonner is investing $5 million of his own family’s money into Chris’ Bonner Private Portfolio recommendations. He thinks there’s an excellent chance he’s going to make his money back… many times over.
To learn more about the service Bill trusts with his family money—and how you can invest alongside him—click here.