It's a great question @TKQLD and one that every 3 months or so, has me trying to work out what to do, and inevitably doing nothing.

There are two issues for me:

1) IS IT WORTH HEDGING YOUR INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT?

I am with Qsuper and they got merged into ART some years back. The following is what they report in terms of returns for an unhedged vs hedged international share index (MSCI. world). This is a relatively short time frame ie only 10 years

You would clearly have lost out somewhat by hedging over the last 10 years.

Over a 30 year period it is a more mixed picture:

I ended up splitting the investment 60:40 in favour of the unhedged option.

2) The second issue is amazing returns of US stocks over the last 10 years has skewed the MSCI to effectively be a 70% USA holding. Given the dominance of the magnificent seven, that means you have a relatively high exposure to US large caps:

I find this astounding.

There is probably not much point holding a TECH ETF listed in Australia with management fees of 0.5-1% when you can get significant exposure to these big tech firms with a vanilla MSCI ETF costing next to nothing.

Over the long term US shares have been fantastic performers. Various commentators are now questioning whether we are now in a bubble (see Howard Marks' latest communication) or just merely overpriced in certain parts. It's so difficult to balance FOMO vs de-risking your portfolio.

My personal opinion is that the S&P500 isunlikely to perform as well over the medium term before it resumes its normal outperformance. I'm not doing much about it though, my Super is still 50% MSCI and 50% "self invest" in ASX300 picks. There aren't many other ways of playing it in my current super set up, I don't want an SMSF and I'd probably stuff it up anyway. I have however, sold ASX:TECH from my self-invest given the above table, and am considering an Emerging markets fund.

Outside of Super I am playing at stock picking on the ASX - hence the Strawman membership.

Interesting to think about even before you add in the likely changes in world trade that the Trump presidency will usher in.

This is a pretty broad question for my fellow investors of the Strawman brain trust,

I'm looking for some perspectives from others holding significant US growth positions, particularly in the current market environment. Our portfolio has a meaningful allocation to US hypergrowth names like Crowdstrike, which have been on quite a tear lately. The weakening AUD (now at 0.62) has further amplified these gains through the currency effect.

While these positions have performed well, I'm wrestling with the forward outlook given both market and currency dynamics. The AUD is trading near historical lows against the USD, which behoves the question - if it strengthens from here, our US holdings would need to significantly outperform just to maintain current gains in AUD terms.

Curious to hear from others in a similar position:

• Are you maintaining your US growth exposure at these levels?
• Considering rotating into ASX-listed names to reduce currency risk?
• Looking at different US sectors/stocks with potentially better risk/reward?
• Have any specific views on AUD/USD direction from here?

I recognise timing currency moves is notoriously difficult, but would value the community's thoughts on managing this dynamic in the current environment.

I'm tempted to sit put and to be honest that's probably what will happen. At the same time though I have a lot of respect for the contributors here and try and keep an open mind.

(I couldn't quite figure out how to create a non-company specific straw so ended up putting it under Betashares Nasdaq hedged ETF so please move it if appropriate)