GlossaryGeographic exposureCountry allocationGeographic breakdownRegional allocation

Country exposure

Country exposure is the share of a fund's portfolio invested in each country, normally assigned by the issuer's country of domicile or listing as classified by the index provider or fund house.

Definition

Country exposure breaks a portfolio down by the country of each holding, with weights expressed as a percentage of net assets. For equities the country is usually the issuer's country of incorporation or primary listing, following the index provider's classification; for bonds it is typically the issuer's country of risk. A regional view groups countries into blocks such as North America, Europe ex-UK, Japan and Emerging Markets.

Why it matters

Country weights drive currency risk, political risk and sensitivity to local rates and growth. A "global" equity fund may hold two-thirds of its assets in one country. Portfolio look-through aggregates these weights across many funds to show a client's true geographic mix, and compliance teams use them to test concentration limits.

In the API

Country weights are in geography as an array of label/weight pairs, regional groupings in region, and a summary label in profile.regionFocus. Example values:

json
{
  "profile": { "regionFocus": "global-developed" },
  "geography": [
    { "label": "United States", "weight": 70.4 },
    { "label": "Japan", "weight": 5.6 },
    { "label": "United Kingdom", "weight": 3.7 }
  ]
}

Common pitfalls

Weights may not sum to exactly 100 because of cash, derivatives and an "Other" bucket. Classification schemes differ between fund houses, so one factsheet's "Europe" may include the UK and another's may not; normalise labels before aggregating. Domicile-based country is not the same as revenue exposure: a company listed in one country can earn most of its revenue elsewhere. See also sector exposure.