Just what Canada needs: more exposure to a resource/China driven economy
Tony Abbott - the Australian Prime Minister - is in Canada at the moment. The Australian press reports that he is meeting a whole lot of fund managers to encourage them to invest in Australia. To quote the Murdoch National Newspaper (The Australian):
Mr Abbott is due to meet leaders from Sun Life Financial, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, Barrick Gold, Barclays Canada, Saputo and Cameco.
I want to be blunt. There are advantages in investing in your own country: you know it better. You are less likely to make mistakes.
And there are reasons to invest overseas: you can get exposure to industries and economic cycles that might not be available at home. You get diversification.
Also every now and again a foreign market can become very cheap (not everywhere is in a bull market simultaneously). Blind Freddy could make money buying the Korean market at the height of the Asian crisis.
None of these reasons apply to a Canadian investing in Australia. Australia most certainly is not cheap. Sydney makes London and New York seem inexpensive.
And Australia and Canada have about the most similar economies in the Western World. We are large land masses, rich in resources, with small population bases and currencies and economies driven by Chinese resource demand. A Canadian investor in Australia gets little diversification benefit.
At the risk of seeming unpatriotic I am going to give you some advice. If you are a Canadian investment leader and Tony Abbott is seeing you today keep it brief. Don't waste his time or yours.
John