Global Investing
Global Investing, Reimagined Through Fundamentals
MarketGrader opens the door to a broader, smarter equity universe—where disciplined company selection, not domicile, drives long-term investment results.
Global Investing: A world of opportunity, redefined by fundamentals
At MarketGrader, we believe investors deserve a better framework for global equity exposure—one that goes beyond outdated constructs and captures the full breadth of economic value creation wherever it takes place.
We don’t promote global investing as a substitute for domestic strategies. Instead, we view it as an intelligent expansion of the investable universe—one that recognizes where capital is being created, how it is being allocated, and which companies are best positioned to deliver long-term shareholder value. In a world where economic power is no longer concentrated in a single region, such a perspective is increasingly essential.
Global Growth Is Evolving
The shape of global growth has changed dramatically in recent decades. In 2000, the United States accounted for 24% of global GDP; by 2023, that share had fallen to 15%, according to the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, emerging markets and developing economies contributed more than 80% of global GDP growth in 20231.
S&P Global projects that by 2030, China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam will collectively generate more than half of global GDP growth, outpacing developed markets by a wide margin2. Its long-term outlook also shows emerging markets contributing 65% of total global growth by 2035, driven by annual GDP growth rates of 4.06%, compared to just 1.59% for developed economies over the past two decades3. And the IMF expects nearly 80% of global GDP growth in 2025 to come from both emerging and developing economies4.
And in developed economies outside the U.S., many high‑quality companies consistently return capital to shareholders through dividends—offering a compelling blend of income and stability that can serve as a strong ballast for volatility in price‑only returns. For example, as of mid‑2025, average dividend yields in markets such as Italy (≈ 5.2 %) and Australia (≈ 3.3 %) significantly outpaced yields in the U.S. (~1.3 %)5. Studies further show that in international developed markets (ex‑U.S.), higher dividend yields have a clearer positive relationship with forward returns, unlike in the U.S., where buybacks dominate6.
While U.S. equity markets remain a cornerstone of long-term wealth creation, this global shift underscores the importance of a broader, fundamentals-driven approach to equity selection—especially as investors seek exposure to the sectors, industries, and companies driving tomorrow’s growth.
MarketGrader’s Global Lens
MarketGrader evaluates over 41,000 publicly traded companies worldwide every day using a single, consistent, fundamentals-based methodology. This standardized framework—rooted in a GARP + Quality discipline—enables us to analyze companies of all sizes, sectors, and domiciles with equal rigor.
Of the ~5,900 companies currently rated ‘Buy’ by MarketGrader (less than 15% of all global companies), just 746 are listed in the U.S.—or 12.6% of the total. And while the U.S. accounts for roughly $70 trillion in aggregate market capitalization, the rest of the world comprises $74 trillion, or 51% of the total $144 trillion global equity market tracked by MarketGrader (as of November 2025).
By expanding the lens beyond traditional home biases, investors gain access to a universe of high-quality companies often overlooked by mainstream benchmarks—without sacrificing transparency, discipline, or scalability.
Additionally, many widely followed international equity benchmarks dilute their effectiveness by including hundreds or even thousands of companies—often with little regard for quality or impact on overall portfolio performance. In such benchmarks, a small number of mega-cap constituents frequently dominate returns, rendering large portions of the index redundant while introducing unnecessary complexity.
And many rely on static or outdated definitions of regions, countries, and market classifications that fail to reflect the fluid nature of global growth and capital markets. By contrast, MarketGrader applies a selective, fundamentals-first approach to global indexing—stripping away the noise to highlight the companies that truly matter, regardless of geography.
See how our methodology cuts through noise, bias, and complexity.
MarketGrader Indexes: Global Outperformance in Practice
The performance of MarketGrader’s global indexes reflects the value of fundamentals-first, company-level selection in diverse markets. Over the five-year period ending in September 2025:
- U.S. indexes outperformed their benchmarks by an average of more than 300 basis points annually.
- Developed Markets indexes exceeded their benchmarks by more than 400 basis points annually.
- Emerging Markets indexes delivered an average of approximately 700 basis points in excess returns each year7.
Indexes tracking markets as varied as Brazil, Israel, India, China, Japan, Canada, Australia, Europe, and the UK have consistently ranked in the top decile of all comparable strategies globally, based on total returns relative to their active manager peer groups8.
This outperformance is not an accident of timing—it is the result of disciplined index construction anchored in deep, transparent company analysis. Across regions and cycles, MarketGrader indexes are designed to harness each market’s beta and add long-term alpha through superior stock selection.
Data sources:
1. IMF World Economic Database, October 2023. Based on current prices, U.S. share of world GDP declined from 24% in 2000 to 15% in 2023. Emerging markets and developing economies contributed 80.2% of global GDP growth in 2023.
2. S&P Global Market Intelligence, “The Four Pillars of Global Growth in the Next Decade”, 2024. China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam are expected to account for 55%+ of global GDP growth through 2030.
3. S&P Global, June 2024, “Emerging Markets: A Decisive Decade.”
4. International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2024.
5. Siblis Research, June 2025, “Global Dividend Yields by Country”
6. Satterthwaite & Verdad, “Buybacks for U.S., Dividends for E.U.” Verdad Capital, March 2024.
7. MarketGrader Indexes vs. Benchmarks Report Card, Q3 2025.
8. MarketGrader Indexes vs. Active Managers report Card, Q3 2025
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