[Jimbo]

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For some stocks in indices to outperform, others must underperform.

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Not true at all, as has been proven it is not a zero sum market. All the stocks in an indice can outperform compared to something else.

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otherwise the generalization "US" is meaningless.

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My point exactly.

One must assume that an index fund is reflective of all investors which is simply not reflective of reality, therefore a comparison to them is meaningless. This doesn't even account for stocks that are addded/removed from said index funds. Nor does it account for dividends. Those facts make saying "blah blah country" was better to invest in than another "blah blah country" unprovable without analyzing all the stocks by market cap and including dividend payments over the same period of time.

Now if one were to say they lost money due to differences in currency transaction values from one country to another in a common investment vehicle then that is easily provable.

I am not saying that investing in the US vs some other random country was better or worse, just that one cannot simply use index fund values over a specified period of time without considering all the other pertinent factors as proof.




Jimbo