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Intel's (INTC) third-quarter revenue warning makes a simple truth crashingly real for many investors: U.S. technology companies' foreign exposure is as vast as it has ever been.

Generally, this is not a bad thing. If you want to keep your company growing, you've got to spread your wings beyond the narrow confines of the domestic market. The U.S. is the undisputed world leader in technology, and that in large part has been responsible for the near viral growth in tech profits and share prices.

"The U.S. has built up a technological advantage, and no other country has tried to catch up," says J.P. Morgan strategist Tom Van Leuven. "As a result, a significant portion of revenues for many tech companies comes from overseas."

The Ache Top tech companies with overseas exposure
Company	Proportion of revenue from overseas
1. Comverse (CMVT)	79%
2. Texas Instruments (TXN)	68%
3. Molex (MOLX)	66%
4. Applied Materials (AMAT)	66%
5. National Semiconductor (NSM)	64%
6. Autodesk (ADSK)	64%
7. Advanced Micro (AMD)	60%
8. KLA-Tencor (KLAC)	60%
9. Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM)	59%
10. IBM (IBM)	58%
13. Intel (INTC)	57%
Source: Merrill Lynch

How significant? Merrill Lynch's quantitative strategy group has put together a list of the top 50 companies in the S&P 500 by foreign exposure, and the biggest group on it by far, representing 42% of it, is tech. PaineWebber recently compiled a list of the 100 companies with the highest exposure to Europe. The biggest group again, weighing in at 28 companies, was tech.

Many tech companies charge for their products in dollars, so recently there has been talk about how JDS Uniphase (JDSU), for example, doesn't get hurt by the beleaguered euro. Intel's warning gives the lie to this, however: A weaker euro may mean that European companies simply cannot buy as much product. Moreover, the high price of oil is affecting growth worldwide. J.P. Morgan's economists recently figured that the high price of oil has already taken 1% out of household income in the developed world.

The Pain Top tech companies with European exposure
Company	Proportion of revenue from Europe
1. JDS Uniphase (JDSU)	37%
2. Autodesk (ADSK)	36%
3. NCR (NCR)	31%
4. Novell (NOVL)	31%
5. EMC (EMC)	30%
6. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)	29%
7. Sun Microsystems (SUNW)	29%
8. BMC Software (BMCS)	28%
9. Xerox (XRX)	28%
10. Computer Sciences (CSC)	27%
11. Intel (INTC)	27%
Source: PaineWebber

This may not necessarily hurt tech. For many companies, the productivity improvement that tech offers is something they can't afford not to own. But for now, it appears that investors, like Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction, have decided that, not knowing which companies to punish, they will punish them all. Dell (DELL), Cisco (CSCO), Applied Materials (AMAT) and JDS Uniphase were lately off sharply. As was Intel -- down $12.50 to $49.03 on Island ECN.

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