Living in the northeast most of the time my concerns are about daily routine in life, but sometimes one wonders about the world, what are the best values in international stocks? Would you know the names or roughly what they do? Although the New York Stock Exchange is still the center of the universe (or for people in the northeast) it helps once in while to look abroad. Craig McGee with Lawrence Ullman of GMP Richardson use Bloomberg and the MSCI EAFE Index, the index tracks companies in Europe, Asia, Australia. In mid May these results were published but now in mid June you can determine if they did indeed rise in value.

Mr. McGee’s criteria was

over $ 1 billion in market cap trading on US exchange in the form of US depositary receipts.

earnings yield (forward 12-month earnings per share as a percentage of latest price

free cash flow yield (forward 12 month FCF as a percentage of latest price

return on equity

consensus earnings per share estimate revisions over the past 3 months

Company                Country    Mkt Cap   EPS   FCF  ROE  3m EPS   Dividend

($Bil)        Yield  Yield  %   Revision    Yield

Anglo American     Britian       17.3         30.8     14.0   17.9    16.7        0.0

China Pete & Chem  China       99.7          8.4      10.2     8.9      9.6          5.5

Vale                            Brazil        43.1         14.2     15.7    16.4     20.0         0.0

Rio Tinto                    Britian       72.0        10.9    12.1      20.2    19.6        6.5

YY Inc                         China            3.0         9.3       8.6      31.9     6.7          0.0

Ternium                     Lux               4.9         13.0      8.4     14.8      31.6       4.1

BHP Billiton PLC        Aust             87.7         8.4       13.4   13.2        9.9       5.3

Petroleo Brasil          Brazil            62.2        9.6      11.5      5.4       12.8       0.0

Teva Pharm                Israel            31.8       15.3     16.0    11.4        0.6       3.7

The other companies were Petroleo Brasileiro, Lukoil, Cemex SAB de CV, BHP Billiton Ltd, Posco .

Linking to dividend paying stocks, we are all bias for very good reasons. Most of our days are linked to what we routinely do. Understanding we are bias and that is ok, every once in while it is good to look towards the rest of the world who are doing something similar to what we are doing. In this case, the analyst looked at ADR receipts but it is just as easy to buy stocks in other countries. The larger your portfolio gets, then you have to be concerned about currency risks, however that is easily overcome. Investing in the best or first in class, whether is local, national or international is always a good idea.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.