“Furthermore, it seems very likely that the fast money will start moving out of U.S. stocks and into alternatives. After all, Dow 25,000 is a great milestone but Wall Street is defined by trend-chasing — not buying and holding forever. While I fully expect America’s economy to stay strong and the U.S. stock market indexes to finish 2018 with some nice gains, it seems reasonable for investors to dabble in other places to find alpha after the great performance of the last 13 months or so,” according to InvestorPlace.
VSS holds holds nearly 3,600 stocks which trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of just under 16, implying a significant discount to major U.S. small-cap benchmarks. The median market value of the ETF’s holdings is $1.8 billion, putting the fund at the higher end of the small-cap spectrum.
“The fund is anchored in Europe, with about 38% of the portfolio’s assets located there. However, emerging markets make up a good 20% of the portfolio as well. This is enough to make this fund a good tactical bet on emerging markets growth without taking on too much risky on these volatile regions,” according to InvestorPlace.
Japan, Canada and the U.K. combine for 40.6% of the geographic exposure in VSS.