Future Proof 2025: Perth Tolle of Life + Liberty Indexes

At Future Proof 2025, Dave Nadig, President and Director of Research at ETF.com chatted international investing with Perth Tolle, CEO and founder of Life + Liberty Indexes. The two discussed the firm’s freedom-based investment strategy and why international and emerging markets are well-positioned to benefit from AI growth. The following is a transcript of their conversation. 

Transcription

Intro Teaser

Tolle: Actually, the places where you have the most freedom are the places that support those stories.

We are very heavy in tech because of Taiwan and South Korea exposures. We also have a lot of Poland and Chile, which is not found in a lot of these other market cap-weighted kinds of indexes in the emerging market space.

The Thesis of Life + Liberty Indexes

Nadig: Dave Nadig, ETF.com. I'm here with Perth Tolle, Life and Liberty Indexes. Perth, you sponsored this conference zine. 

Tolle: Yes, I did. 

Nadig: Which I made, and I have to ask you, this is a legit question – what the hell were you thinking? 

Tolle: I was thinking our industry needs more originality and good content, so here we are. 

Nadig: Alright, well, in all seriousness though, you're the brilliant genius behind Life and Liberty Indexes and freedom-based investing. Talk to me a little bit about that approach and why you think it's been successful.

Tolle: Well, we've been around for about six years. We've had significant outperformance over cap-weighted benchmarks because freedom weighting just kind of makes intuitive sense. You want to be in the countries where there is strong rule of law, there is strong institutions, and there's strong protections for personal and economic freedoms. And those are the places that we're going to find the best growth stories going forward because they're conditioned to support those types of businesses. 

So that's where we want to be in the emerging market space, and we don't want to be in the autocracies. We don't want to be in the places that are creating chaos in the world. We want to be in the ones that are creating solutions.

Nadig: Now, we're in a pretty dynamic world, right? I think you can't just say you could set this forever and then nothing would ever change. How often are you re-evaluating what countries count and which countries probably need a second look? 

Tolle: We also are using third-party metrics, so it's not us, but the third-party data think-tanks, like Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute. They re-evaluate once a year, so we also rebalance once a year.

Nadig: And I'm hearing from a lot of advisors here something to the akin of, “Oops, I forgot to invest internationally because it's the markets that have been working.” Are you getting some of that, "Oh my gosh, I really should have been allocating?" 

Tolle: Well, you know what? I think that's a common problem. It's not too late, though. There's a long way for emerging markets and international to run. It's still cheap compared to U.S. – very cheap. So, I think there's a lot of room to run, and it's never too late to diversify. 

Thinking Globally About the AI Opportunity Set

Nadig: We had Joe Davis from Vanguard up on stage talking about AI and how the impacts may actually be not what we think. It may not just be Mag 7 stocks. One of the things he highlighted was international and emerging markets may be the big beneficiaries. Are you a buyer on that story? 

Tolle: I am, and actually the places where you have the most freedom are the places that support those stories. We are very heavy in tech because of Taiwan and South Korea exposures. We also have a lot of Poland and Chile, which is not found in a lot of these other market cap-weighted kind of indexes in the emerging market space.

So I think that tech supports that story even more, in places where it's coming from a lower base, like the emerging markets. So, yeah, absolutely. 

Nadig: Well, thank you for supporting this. Thank you for giving investors an alternative in the space.

Tolle: Thank you for existing, Dave.