Like Traveling Abroad Without Your Shots

The Internet can take investors anywhere on the globe. Whether they ought to follow the Web into foreign stock markets is another question. Two new online brokers are extending the reach of online investing to "foreign ordinaries"--stocks in overseas companies that don't trade on U.S. markets. Intltrader.com and Globeshare.com promise near-instant online access to quotes and trading in companies such as Porsche or Tokyo Electron. "If you can get us a symbol, we'll get you a quote and a trade," says Brent Bessire, Intltrader's chief operating officer.

Most experts recommend that you invest a portion of your portfolio--up to 20% for aggressive investors--outside the U.S. Besides diversifying risk, foreign stocks can let you play outstanding prospects, such as the world's top cell-phone makers, and surges in hot markets, such as the 50% rise in Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index in 1999. A handful of global companies list shares in the U.S., such as AirCanada and Elephant & Castle Group. But the main ways for Americans to own a piece of the globe are through international mutual funds or American depositary receipts (ADRs)--exchange-traded certificates representing ownership of stock in such foreign companies as Nokia or Acer.