Emerging Market Stocks Are Outperforming Domestic Stocks: Is It Too Late To Buy?

U.S. stocks have been performing well under the "Trump rally" but not as well as many stock markets outside of the U.S. Consider the fact that the S&P 500 index and its corresponding exchange-traded fund SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) is up 8.1 percent since the start of 2017. By most measures this is a great return but falls notably short of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Indx (ETF) (NYSE:EEM).

It is, however, important to note that 75 percent of the emerging market's ETF fund is specific to the Asia Pacific region. With that said Oppenheimer's technical analysis expert Ari Wald noted during a recent CNBC "Trading Nation" segment that domestic stocks offer a far superior risk to reward profile over a longer-term period as the emerging market fund has yet to surpass its 2007 highs.

As such, investors should continue being overweight on domestic stocks but the emerging market ETF is still a good tool for investors to gain some exposure to international stocks, Wald added. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar isn't expected to see any significant upturn that could disrupt the emerging markets.

Wald also prefers the emerging markets ETF over its rival iShares MSCI EAFE Index Fund (ETF) (NYSE:EFA),which is up 12 percent since the start of 2017.

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