Six easy ways to tap into overseas growth

Article Excerpt

We think conservative investors could hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus. The best ETFs offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of highquality stocks. Here are six international ETFs we like: ISHARES MSCI JAPAN INDEX FUND $11.81 (New York Exchange symbol EWJ; buy or sell through brokers; us.ishares.com) is an exchange traded fund that tries to match the return of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Japan index. The ETF’s top holdings include Toyota, 6.6%; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, 3.1%; Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, 2.4%; Softbank Corp., 2.4%; Honda Motor, 2.3%; Mizuho Financial Group, 1.9%; Japan Tobacco, 1.5%; Takeda Pharmaceutical, 1.4%; Canon, 1.3%; and Hitachi, 1.2%. The fund’s industry breakdown is as follows: Financials, 21.4%; Consumer Discretionary, 21.1%; Industrials, 19.6%; Information Technology, 9.6%; Consumer Staples, 6.3%; Materials, 6.2%; Health Care, 5.9%; Telecommunication Services, 5.1%; Utilities, 2.8%; and…