Investing in the United States
US disclosure is the best in the world, which means any edge you find is unlikely to come from the filings alone.
Understand why the US market is the default, and what that costs you.
How Investing in the United States works, in one picture
The same argument as the text, as a chain. Each step is what makes the next one possible.
One number, four consequences
A rate is the price of the future. Move it, and everything whose value sits in the future is repriced, which is why growth companies fall hardest.
- 1
The disclosure is genuinely exceptional
SEC filings are detailed, timely, standardised and enforced. SteadyShares pulls fundamentals for US companies straight from EDGAR for exactly this reason: it is the one jurisdiction where the primary source is both complete and machine readable.
- 2
Which means it is efficiently priced
Thousands of analysts read the same excellent filings. Anything a screen can see is already in the price. If you think you have found a mispriced mega-cap, your first question should be why nobody else has.
Efficiency is not perfection. It is a very high bar, and it is highest exactly where the coverage is deepest.
- 3
The index is now a concentration bet
A handful of technology companies make up an enormous share of the S&P 500. Buying the index is no longer buying America, it is buying a large position in a few businesses plus a long tail. That may be fine. It should be deliberate.
- 4
Everything is priced off the Fed
The US risk-free rate is the reference rate for the planet. When it moves, every asset everywhere reprices, which is why a committee in Washington moves the JSE and the Nikkei.
You know what share of the index your three largest holdings actually are.
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US disclosure is the best in the world, which means any edge you find is unlikely to come from the filings alone.
Every one shows its exact method, and the circumstances in which it is wrong. Free, and no account to look.