Most of the same fundamentals exist, with some caveats i will deal with later in the answer.
If you are working abroad you need to:
- Invest for the long-term. This will compound your gains and reduce risk
- Invest and not speculate. A long-term, sensible, plan, is always likely to beat trying to get into short-term trends. We have seen that in recent years with many people getting into meme stocks and crypto at inflated prices.
- Reinvest dividends. This makes a huge difference long-term
- Be diversified, especially when you are older. Putting all your eggs in one basket doesn’t make sense.
The key differences about living abroad are:
- You usually can’t get access to your home countries social security system. Back home, investing 10% of whatever you make might be enough for retirement, because you are paying into the retirement system. Many expats panic when they are older, after not putting enough aside for themselves and their family in the previous years.
- Tax-efficient local investment vehicles, such as ISAs in the UK, aren’t usually available for expats, so offshore investing makes more sense for most non-American expats. For American expats, most forms of offshore investing have became too difficult due to PFIC and other rules
- Many people are on fixed-term contracts overseas. If you are a teacher back home, you can still have a position for life, or at least it is difficult to fire you. Overseas, you are often paid more, but are on two or three year contracts working in teaching, oil & gas, intergovernmental organizations etc. This makes saving and investing even more important.
- Many investment providers won’t accept for certain overseas countries. Even those who do, often have restrictions if you move again. So, finding a truly portable, global and expat-friendly provider is key.
So, the same fundamentals apply, but the urgency is often bigger.
Some Reading
Expat investing: how to invest from overseas in 2022 | Adam Fayed
Investing as an expat in 2021
https://adamfayed.com/expat-investing-how-to-invest-from-overseas-in-2021/
How can you prepare for a recession? | Adam Fayed
How can you prepare for a recession?
https://adamfayed.com/how-can-you-prepare-for-a-recession/
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