Foreign developed-markets indexes are less concentrated than they have been in decades. Japanese firms have dominated many of these benchmarks over the past 30-plus years. But an extended bout of relatively poor performance from these stocks has cut their standing to about 25% of foreign developed-markets indexes, down from roughly 60% in the early 1990s. So, low-fee developed-markets index-trackers are less dependent on a single market and currency, making funds like Schwab International Equity ETF a great way to get exposure to these established markets. SCHF earns a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Silver.The fund’s target index, the FTSE Developed Ex U.S. Index, is composed of large- and mid-cap companies from 24 developed markets outside of the United States, including companies listed in Canada and South Korea. It weights its hold… Full Story

The efficient-market hypothesis, or EMH, implies that the market quickly and accurately incorporates all information regarding a stock's actual value into its price. Investors can't gain an informational advantage and shouldn't try to beat the market. Instead, they should simply track the market through a broad market index fund.Critics of the EMH point out that the market can and does make mistakes. Occasionally the market's collective demand can bid share prices well above fair value, creating a bubble that ends with a sharp price decline. This creates a problem for index investors, since they are fully exposed these downfalls in prices.History has shown that the critics aren't wrong. Digging further into how markets function reveals that the market's judgment isn't always great. But the market doesn't need to be right 100% of the … Full Story