It’s easy to get nervous about stock market news headlines. Some investors worry that the S&P 500 index is too expensive due to high valuations of artificial intelligence (AI) stocks.

I’m a long-term investor, so I keep buying stocks in a broadly diversified portfolio of U.S. companies no matter what today’s news headlines might say. But as part of that long-term investing approach, I also believe in buying international stocks.

Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »

The Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (NASDAQ: VXUS) is an ultra-low-cost way to buy more than 8,000 global stocks at once. If I had to put an extra $500 to work by buying stocks in September 2026, I would buy this global ETF.

Here’s a quick look at why $500 invested in VXUS could deliver strong returns for the future.

Buying international stocks, just like any other investment, is not a sure thing. Sometimes other countries deliver lower returns than the U.S. stock market. But in the past year, the Vanguard Total International Stock ETF has delivered an impressive return of about 26%.

In the past three years, this fund’s annualized return has been about 19.8% per year. If you had invested $500 per month in VXUS starting three years ago, you’d have about $21,800 today.

There’s no guarantee that VXUS will keep delivering such strong returns forever. But recent research from Vanguard forecasts that international stocks will deliver better returns than U.S. stocks for the next 30 years — perhaps about 1.2% to 2.2% higher returns per year.

I share Vanguard’s long-term optimism about international stocks, and VXUS is one of the best international ETFs. That’s why I’m going to keep buying VXUS in September 2026, and as often as I can.

Before you buy stock in Vanguard Total International Stock ETF, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Vanguard Total International Stock ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $421,997!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,413,876!*