The European Stocks

In building an international portfolio, I would put 30% holdings into Europe, which would be say 17 percent into the S&P/Europe 350 list of securities, 11 percent into the S&P/UK 150 list, and 1 percent into the Eastern Europe emerging economies, such as Russia.

In the ‘Old Europe' group, some solid German corporations (including NYSE ticker symbols) are Deutsche Telekom (DT), Allianz (AZ), Bayer (BAY), SAP (SAP) and Siemens (SI). The big Swiss corporations include Novartis (NVS), Credit Suisse (CSR) and Ciba (CSB).

The S&P/Europe 350 represents the non-British European component of the S&P Global 1200. These high-quality stocks trade at lower P/E multiples than the S&P 500.

You can electronically trade German and Swiss-listed stocks (as you can U.S., British, and Canadian-listed stocks) at Interactive Brokers. You can even find them easily if they are dually-listed stocks on the NYSE.

Deutsche Telekom AG [DT]
Infineon Technologies AG [IFX]
Allianz AG [AZ]
Bayer AG [BAY]
BASF AG [BF]
Siemens AG [SI]
Fresenius Medical Care AG [FMS]
Schering AG [SHR]
E.ON AG [EON]

Novartis AG [NVS]
Syngenta AG [SYT]
Logitech International SA [LOGI]
Credit Suisse Group [CSR]
ABB Ltd [ABB]
Adecco SA [ADO]
Swisscom AG [SCM]
Ciba Specialty Chemicals [CSB]