World-wise funds

While equities have plunged around the globe, writes William Samuel Rocco of Morningstar, world-allocation funds have performed better than — or, at least, haven’t performed as badly as — world-stock funds or domestic large cap funds.

“World-allocation funds can–and do–make full use of the asset-class spectrum, while world-stock offerings focus on equities and world-bond funds concentrate on fixed-income securities,” he says. World-allocation funds have about 40 percent of their assets in cash, short-term credits and higher-quality intermediate-term U.S. and foreign bonds.