Knowledge of the country weights in the emerging and developed markets indices can be helpful in specifying allocations within the equity portion of a portfolio.

For those clients who wish to allocate primarily on a country basis (as opposed to a sector basis, for example), our general philosophy is to begin the design process from the starting point of world market capitalization, then deviate from there as appropriate per client.

More specifically, we recommend placing at least 50% of equity assets in broad index funds in proportion to world market capitalization. Then, depending on your degree of aggressiveness and your confidence in your assessment of markets, placing up to 50% of equity assets in regional or country funds with anywhere from minor to massive overweights or underweights.

In order to make a conscious overweight or underweight decision, you need to know the neutral weights.

The major weight categories, US (proxy VTI), non-US developed …