My All-American Portfolio

I’ve previously laid out the case for and against holding international exposure. Both sides have real merit. But I didn’t tell you what I actually do with my own money.

Here it is: I hold zero international stocks. My retirement accounts and my taxable brokerage are all VTI, all the time. No VXUS, no VEA, no VT, nothing. This isn’t a claim that international is a bad investment, or that everyone holding it is making a mistake. It’s the reasoning behind where I’ve landed, and a few of my reasons have nothing to do with spreadsheets.

The U.S. Has Structural Advantages That Are Hard to Replicate

The U.S. isn’t just the largest economy in the world; it’s structured in a way that makes it an unusually good place for businesses to thrive and for shareholders to be treated fairly.

Capitalism and free markets mean capital flows towards its most productive use rather than being directed by central planners. Federalism and separation of powers prevent any single branch of government, or any single state, from having unchecked control over the economy, which makes radical, business-disrupting policy swings less likely. The rule of law and an independent judiciary mean contracts get enforced, property rights are protected, and a company’s ownership structure won’t be rewritten on a politician’s whim.

On top of that, U.S. capital markets are the deepest and most liquid in the world, which makes it easier for companies to raise money, go public, and get acquired than almost anywhere else. Corporate governance here is among the most shareholder-friendly of any major market, with disclosure requirements, board accountability, and legal recourse that protect minority shareholders. And the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency gives U.S. companies (and the U.S. government) a level of financial flexibility that other countries simply don’t have.

None of this guarantees future returns, and other countries can develop similar advantages over time. But I don’t see another country currently combining all of these traits the way the U.S. does, and that combination is a meaningful head start for the businesses I’m investing in.

If I Wouldn’t Open a Business There, Why Would I Own One There?

When you buy a share of stock, you’re buying a tiny slice of a business. That’s the whole transaction. So, I ask myself a simple question: if I were starting a business from scratch, where would I want to incorporate it? The U.S., every time — because of its structural advantages, my familiarity with its laws and customs, and the unpredictable hurdles of foreign markets. If I wouldn’t personally choose to own a business in another country, why own a piece of one there through the stock market.

Currency Risk and Political Risk Are Real

When you buy an international stock, you’re not just making a bet on that company, you’re also making a bet on that country’s currency relative to the dollar. Sometimes that works in your favor, and sometimes it quietly eats your returns even when the underlying business did fine.

Then there’s political risk. Different countries have different tax regimes, different rules about foreign ownership, different levels of government intervention in markets, and different tolerances for things like nationalization or capital controls. I’d rather not have to worry about these things blowing up my holdings.

The Numbers Have Favored the U.S., and Especially Over Long Periods

From 1970 to 2025, the S&P 500 beat the MSCI EAFE (a standard developed-markets international index) in 60% of rolling 10-year periods, 78% of rolling 20-year periods, and every rolling 30-year period, so the share of U.S. wins grew as the holding period lengthened. The average U.S. edge was roughly two percentage points a year across these windows. And during this period, the U.S. compounded at roughly 11% annually, while international compounded at roughly 8.5% annually. (Note: These figures come from my own compilation of historical index returns and may contain small errors. The rolling windows also overlap heavily, so the long-horizon results reflect fewer independent market cycles than the percentages suggest.)

Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, but for money I won’t touch for 30+ years, a long record of U.S. leadership is a reasonable starting point.

The U.S. Market Is My Benchmark, and That Matters

Here’s the behavioral piece. When I think about how my portfolio is doing, I’m mentally comparing it to the U.S. stock market. That’s my reference point. It’s what gets talked about in the news, it’s what most of my friends and colleagues are invested in, and it’s the number I instinctively check myself against.

That means if I hold international and the U.S. market rips while international lags, I feel like I made a mistake, even if international still had a perfectly respectable return. But if I hold 100% U.S. and international happens to outperform for a while, I don’t feel nearly the same sting. I’m still tracking my benchmark. I’m not “behind.”

I Love America, and I Don’t Want to Root Against It

This one’s simple, and it’s personal. I served in the military, and I genuinely love this country. When I hold international stocks, some small part of my brain ends up rooting for the U.S. to underperform, because that’s the only way international exposure shows up as a “win” for my portfolio.

I don’t want any part of me hoping for America to do worse. Holding 100% U.S. stocks means my financial interests and my patriotism point in the same direction. That alignment matters to me more than it probably should on paper, but I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t matter at all.

VTI Already Gives Me Plenty of Diversification

“All U.S.” does not mean “under-diversified.” VTI holds roughly 3,600 U.S. companies, spanning every sector, every size, and a wide range of business models. A massive share of the revenue generated by those companies comes from outside the U.S. Apple, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Visa (for example) are global businesses that happen to be headquartered and listed in the U.S.

So, when I hold VTI, I’m not just betting on “America.” I’m getting exposure to global economic activity through companies that are run under U.S. corporate governance, report in U.S. dollars, and operate under U.S. law. That’s the combination I want.

I’ve Tried International Three Times. It Never Stuck.

My own track record is instructive. I’ve added international exposure to my portfolio three separate times over my investing life, and all three times, I eventually abandoned it.

The first two times, I gave up on international while it was underperforming, which is the textbook example of bad behavioral investing. Buy something, watch it lag, lose patience, sell.

But the third time is the one that really tells me something. That time, international was outperforming U.S. stocks, and I still couldn’t stick with it. I kept second-guessing the allocation, kept wondering if I had the weighting right, kept feeling like the position was either too small to matter or too large for my comfort. After about a month, I simplified back to 100% VTI, even while international was working. That track record tells me this isn’t really about whether international is a good idea in theory. It’s about whether I can hold it through a full cycle without fiddling, which I’ve now demonstrated three times that I can’t.

I Like Simplicity, and VT Doesn’t Solve It for Me Either

If I were going to hold international, the simplest way to do it would be a single global fund like VT, which holds both U.S. and international stocks in one ticker. One fund, globally diversified, no rebalancing required. On paper, that’s appealing to someone who values simplicity as much as I do.

But VT’s U.S. weighting (currently around 60%) is lower than I’m comfortable with. And that brings me back to the allocation problem I mentioned above: every time I’ve held international, I’ve struggled to land on a weighting that felt right. Too little, and it doesn’t move the needle, so why bother? Too much, and I’m uncomfortable with how much of my portfolio depends on companies and economies I don’t understand as well. VT solves the “one fund” problem, but it doesn’t solve the “what weighting actually feels right to me” problem. VTI sidesteps all of it. One fund, one country I understand deeply, and no weighting decision to obsess over.

Where I Land

None of this is a claim that international diversification is wrong, or that everyone should do what I do. Plenty of smart, disciplined investors hold meaningful international allocations and are perfectly happy with the results. In fact, international exposure is recommended by nearly all professional advisors and by academia.

For me, though, the combination of structural advantages, the business-ownership lens, my own behavioral track record, and a healthy dose of patriotism, all point in the same direction: 100% VTI. If my thinking changes down the road, I’ll write about that too. But for now, this is where I’m planting my flag, pun fully intended.