Do I really need international investments?
International investing is not about chasing whichever market did best recently. It is about avoiding a portfolio that depends entirely on one country continuing to lead forever. The right amount depends on the plan, taxes, account location, and your ability to stick with it through long periods of underperformance.
International investing is one of those topics where recent performance tends to dominate the conversation.
If U.S. stocks have done better for a long time, people start asking why they own international at all. That is understandable. It is also exactly how investors end up overconfident in whatever just worked.
The reason to own it
The reason is diversification. Not because international will always outperform, and not because there is a magic percentage everyone should own.
The reason is that the future is unknown. Different markets lead at different times, currencies move, valuations change, and the U.S. will not necessarily be the best-performing market in every future decade.
The reason not to overdo it
There is also a behavioral side. If an allocation makes you miserable enough to abandon it after years of underperformance, it was not the right allocation for you.
This is where textbook investing and real-life investing separate a little. The mathematically elegant answer is not always the answer a person can actually live with.
How I would decide
I would look at the overall plan, account types, tax costs, time horizon, and how much tracking-error discomfort you can handle. Then I would use international exposure deliberately, not as a random leftover in a fund lineup.
The goal is not to win an argument about global market theory. The goal is to build a portfolio that can do its job in more than one version of the future.
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