A Buck Off the Irish

Some well-known funds with names that might not indicate Irish investments appear in the bottom table of Irish holdings ranked by dollar amount. Although these Fidelity and American Fund offerings have significant dollars invested in Ireland, the amounts total relatively modest percentages of assets.

Still, Irish loyalists might appreciate the irony of the (AGTHX Quote)Growth Fund of America having close to a billion dollars invested in Ireland.

Perhaps most interesting about the two lists of funds with top Irish holdings is that the values in the one- and three-year performance columns are, for the most part, not shabby at all. The closed-end New Ireland Fund is not the only Irish play to receive a buy recommendation from TheStreet.com Ratings.

An impressive eight of the 10 funds on the top list earned grades in the A and B ranges, placing them in the buy category. There were no D or E grades in the top list, which would indicate sell recommendations. The bottom table, whose constituents generally have lower percentages of Irish holdings, contains six funds in the A and B ranges that equate with buy recommendations and only one D-plus grade, equivalent to a sell recommendation.

With a young, educated workforce, a balanced government budget and a slim corporate tax rate of 12.5%, Ireland has been an economic standout in Europe. The most recent forecast from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) is for the nation's GDP to match last year's grow rate of 5.1% for this year and another 4.5% in 2008.

Following up on an advance of 2.8% in Ireland's consumer price index in 2006, the OECD forecasts a CPI increase of 2.8% in calendar 2007 and 3.0% next year. The OECD forecasts that Ireland's unemployment rate will remain unchanged at 4.4% -- among the lowest in Europe -- through the end of next year.