Vivian Lewis is editor and founder of Global-Investing.com, the daily blog newsletter for Americans and others seeking to internationalize their portfolios. She brings unique experience and competences to the business of picking foreign stocks. After graduating from Harvard magna cum laude (and being elected to Phi Beta Kappa), Vivian lived 18 years in Europe where she worked as a financial journalist.

Back in the U.S. in 1989, she decided that retail investors managing their own portfolios deserved the kind of information she had been digging up for mutual fund and pension fund managers. So she started Global Investing, now 19 years old. It began with the rise of the American Depositary Receipt market, where now some 2,500 shares can be bought. We also cover Canadian stocks (which are not ADRs).

Nine years ago, she started GlobalInvestingPro, which has now been incorporated into the main global investing newsletter, mainly because the number of unsponsored ADRs has grown rapidly since late 2008.

Apart from ADRs, Global Investing also covers yield instruments like yankee bonds and foreign preferred stocks. And for start-up global investors, we recommend closed-end and exchange-traded funds which invest outside the U.S. Fund offer instant diversification at lower cost than individual stocks. But with discount brokerages on the Internet, you can built an global portfolio with as little as $25,000 to start with.

Vivian brings to her readers her familiarity with foreign markets, a full rolodex of contacts garnered during 18 years of living abroad, and the ability to speak a half-dozen languages.

Global Investing portfolios are divided into:

• Yield Portfolio for wealth preservation and current income.

• Buy and Hold Portfolio for wealth preservation and current income.

• Speculative Portfolio for investors who can accept some risk in exchange for a high reward.

• Closed-End Fund and Exchange-Traded Funds Portfolio for investors seeking maximum safety through diversification.