As co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund firm, Karen Karniol-Tambour scours global markets for good investment opportunities. She’s increasingly finding them outside the U.S.
When U.S. stocks started to outperform stocks in other countries years ago, Karniol-Tambour recalls, U.S.-stock valuations were relatively low and positive earnings surprises would boost them. But these days, she says, valuations for U.S. stocks are a pretty reasonable expectation of earnings. So where else in the world can investors go? Karniol-Tambour thinks they should take a close look at Japan. These days, when Karniol-Tambour talks about the opportunities in Japan, she often feels people look at her like she’s stuck in the 1980s. But Karniol-Tambour says that because investors ignored Japan for so long – not buying Japanese stocks or bonds – the result was that Japanese companies just didn’t even think about returning money to shareholders. But that is starting to change.