You may have heard investing outside the US is difficult, time consuming, and requires special skills and experience attainable only by hacking through foreign jungles with a machete. Some of that may have been true in the past, but global investing has changed dramatically in recent years. Today, foreign investing is barely more difficult than investing in US Companies.
Many mature markets have been open to foreign investors for years—make that centuries. The Dutch East India Company first tapped investment dollars by listing shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 1602. But equity market liberalization in many places is relatively new. Capital markets in many countries are still developing, and some countries place significant restrictions on foreign investing. But even investing in countries welcoming foreign investors has involved a number of challenges.