What the experts say

Buy globally

American investors have a pretty narrow view of the world, said Jason Zweig in The Wall Street Journal. Americans have more than 72 percent of their stock holdings parked in U.S. stocks, even though U.S. stocks account for only 42 percent of the value of all equities. “When American investors do go abroad, they treat the world as lopsided.” In 2009, Americans put 95 percent of new international investment dollars into Brazil, Russia, India, and China. By contrast, they’re “spread thin in countries like Australia, Britain, France, and Japan,” which actually have more developed economies. According to the MSCI Barra (All Country World) index, Americans should actually have more money invested in such markets than they do at home.

Real estate: Buy now or later?

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Some homebuyers are racing to snag the government’s $8,000 tax credit and lock in “ultra-cheap” mortgage rates, but it may pay to procrastinate, said Jack Hough in SmartMoney. “Both perks are expected to vanish in the coming months.” When they do, demand for new homes could “disappear,” taking prices down in the process; it’s “reasonable to assume” that prices in many areas will sink 5 percent come spring. For some would-be buyers, “especially those buying more expensive houses and those who might move in fewer than 10 years, waiting for the perks to expire will likely be a better deal.”

Partisan portfolios

Whether you’re feeling bearish or bullish right now may depend on your political views, said Mark Hulbert in The New York Times. Both Democrats and Republicans are more optimistic investors when their political party is in power, according to a recent study by professors at the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Texas. They tend to hold more domestic stocks, take on more risk, and trade less frequently. When their party is in opposition, the converse is true. But be warned: Such bearishness can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since it leads to more frequent trading, which itself generally leads to lower returns. “Primarily for this reason, investors, on average, performed better when their political party was in power—about 2.7 percent better a year.”