Funds That Can Win in a Resurgent France

One fund that didn't make the list was the (CWGIX Quote)American Funds Cap World Growth & Income Fund (CWGIX).

Even though it has the biggest exposure to French securities of any U.S. fund on an absolute basis, at $8.89 billion, its allocation as a percentage of total assets is relatively small, at 10.33%.

Similarly, we excluded the DFA International Core Equity Portfolio despite the fact that it has the greatest number of French holdings of any U.S. fund -- 186 securities.

The combined value of these holdings, at $104.9 million, comprises just 8.11% of the fund's total net assets.

In all, 1,166 U.S. open-end funds hold a total of $145.8 billion in 369 French securities.

A total of 41 ETFs combined with 67 closed-end funds hold $14.2 billion in 107 French securities.

The table below displays the favorite French investments of U.S. funds.

Most Popular French Investments for U.S. Funds
Company Name & ADR	No. of Funds Holding Security	Value of U.S. Fund Holdings ($)
OPEN-END FUNDS
Sanofi Aventis, SNY	387	15,401.6
Total	332	10,477.4
BNP Paribas	272	7,968.4
Societe Generale	253	7,950.5
AXA, AXA	243	6,509.1
France Telecom, FTE	210	5,627.4
Renault	159	5,608.8
Vivendi	186	5,404.6
Groupe Danone	174	4,975.6
Veolia Environnement, VE	154	4,852.2
ETFs & CLOSED-END FUNDS
Total	43	1,992.4
Sanofi Aventis, SNY	24	1,975.7
BNP Paribas	18	880.7
Societe Generale	23	707.5
AXA, AXA	29	623.4
Groupe Danone	16	530.4
France Telecom, FTE	30	506.1
Suez, SZE	22	459.2
Vivendi	18	417.9
Vinci	11	393.9
Data as of 6/30/2007. Source: TheStreet.com Ratings.

The funds with the highest percentages of French investments have recently been performing better than some Francophobes might lead you to believe. Not a single minus sign is to be found in the performance columns of the table, and all of the 12-month returns run well north of 20%.

For the open-end funds on the list, six of the eight funds with sufficient history to earn grades from TheStreet.com Ratings merit "buy" recommendations. Two of them boast grades in the "A" range and four in the "B" category. One of the eight rated open-end funds was rated a "hold" with a grade in the "C" range and only one received a "sell" recommendation with a grade of D-.

Remarkably, TheStreet.com's highest possible A+ marks are found on all three of the ETFs with sufficient histories to allow for computation of grades. Joining them as a "buy" recommended fund, with a grade of B+, is the lone closed-end fund in the table, The (EEA Quote)European Equity Fund (EEA).

Mais voyons, with such decent stock market performance, France can't be all that bad. After all, it has a whole city named Paris!