When I looked at holding a world stock fund and also considered a equal weighted alternative I ended up looking at directly holding a bunch of global mega-caps diversified across sectors. The ultimate conclusion I came to however was that I'd rather equal weight 'currencies' and assets. UK home £/land, US stocks/$, gold (global currency/commodity).
In 1971 the US ended the gold standard and the US$ became the primary reserve currency, which means they can print/spend as many $'s as they can get away with. Before that the $ (and £) were backed by something tangible and finite (gold). President Nixon ended that gold coupling as a means to pay down the cost of the Vietnam war. As the US devalues the $ (prints/spends), so others have also done likewise, and many further devalued their currencies relative to the US$. Within that, stocks from across a range of currencies have generally correlated - tended to zig and zag around the same time as each other.
Interesting in the first chart of the following image to see how Japan grew its global market share during the 1970's and 1980's whilst the US saw its share decline from around 70% down to around 30%, and then that turned around and Japan's share declined as the US's share doubled back up again from around 30% to 60%.
As the US$ is the primary reserve currency, I want to hold some of that. As the $ tends to debase against gold I'm content to also hold some of that. As I live in the UK a UK home/£ is appropriate.
The US intentionally has a superior military capacity as that is primary in sustainability. Has a large land mass and its $ is the primary reserve currency. It's practice is to simply print and buy up what looks to be the future. A larger scale of Microsoft - just buy out any competitors (preferably early when the price is low).
Equal weighted land/stock/commodity £/$/gold has land (home) being illiquid, so primarily its a 50/50 US stock/gold asset blend. There's a indicator of how that performed historically
here. Not forgetting that the Pound has also relatively declined compared to the US$ so that added further benefits/reward.
That's a asset allocation that the ancient Talmud recorded millennia ago, division equally between land, commerce and cash in hand (gold). It's also what old money (generational wealth) tends to follow, 'a third, a third, a third', mantra - land, gold, art ... but with art swapped for stocks.
As such I now have no desire to hold VWRL or suchlike. Where each country takes a (variable) amount of the dividends that stocks listed within its realm pay, and where the fund manager takes their cut, typically also out of dividends. If I did I'd be more inclined to go with the likes of something like
this, 5 sectors, Financials (BRK), Consumption (Unilever), Tech (Apple/Microsoft), health (Glaxo/AZN), Oils (BP/Shell). But with BRK and Unilever also partnered ... so 5 sectors, 10 stocks, 10% weighting per stock. A major index such as the FT100 and/or S&P500 can hold 10% weightings in single stocks at times. So assuming 10 stocks each 10% weighted, perhaps with 7 of the stocks listed in London - where no dividend withholding tax is applied, Berkshire Hathaway pays no dividends, so that makes 8 of the 10. If the other two were paying say 4% dividends, and 15% of that is withheld by the US, then that's a 0.12% proportional cost relative to the whole. In contrast if being held via actual foreign holdings and stocks were paying 4% dividends and perhaps seeing a average 20% of dividends being withheld, then that's a 0.8% cost. Factor in fund managers fees and you might be looking at 0.2% versus 1% differences. Which if overall gross rewards were 4% real (after inflation) then a 1% slice out of that is substantial.
What do you consider more risky, a holding of 3 stocks or an equal(ish) value holding of 507 stocks?