Today we are featuring top-performing "European" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in equity securities of companies based in Europe.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of Zacks #1 Rank European Equity Funds.

3 Solid Samples

ING European Real Estate Fund A (IAERX) seeks to provide investors with high total return, consisting of capital appreciation and current income. It was incepted in November 2007.

The fund normally invests at least 80% of net assets in a portfolio of equity securities of real estate companies located in Europe. The fund may invest in convertible securities, initial public offering and depositary receipts.

The fund has an expense ratio of 1.75%. As of July 2009, it has a portfolio turnover of 166%.

Steven D. Burton has been lead manager of the fund since November 2007. Burton is a managing director at ING and has 24 years investment experience.

T. Rowe Price European Stock

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Twenty years ago this week, the Berlin Wall fell and in doing so, set off a string of momentous events that in short order saw the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and freedoms and democracy spread across a long-oppressed part of the world. Few events in modern history have had such a significant impact on the lives of so many people, but momentum for the wallrsquo;s fall began years earlier. A member of our investment team who grew up in Poland points out the important role played by Polish leader Lech Walesa, the shipyard electrician who led the Solidarity labor movement that drew support from around the world. Solidarityrsquo;s success in creating the first free trade union behind the Iron Curtain weakened the regionrsquo;s Communist governments and won Walesa the Nobel Peace Prize. Walesa, later Polandrsquo;s first post-Communist president, was in Berlin this week to tip over the first ...

"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." - Mark Twain

David Satter, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and visiting scholar at SAIS, has done an amazing thing to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He has taken a topic which normally takes about 1,000 words just to introduce, and distilled one of its principal lessons for today's geopolitical arena into just about 1,000 words.

In particular, and very significantly, he closes in on what continues to be one of the defining struggles of our time: the challenge of engaging with an ideology that leaves no room for alternative discourse. Twenty years ago, that ideology was Communism. Today it

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Mikhael Gorbachev has penned an article in the New York Times reflecting on how the period since the fall of the Berlin Wall (the 20th anniversary of which will be celebrated on Friday) has not necessarily heralded a less distrustful approach to Russia.  He cites the open letter to  to Barack Obama by Vaclav Havel and other European luminaries in September, counseling the US President to take a firm stand on Russia, and the OSCE resolution equating Stalinism and Nazism as moves demonstrating that latent russophobia is still hampering unity in Europe.To my regret, the events took a different course. This has stalled the emergence of a new Europe. Instead of the old dividing lines, new ones have ...

This analysis is from Evan Smith and Brian Hicks, co-managers of the Global Resources Fund (PSPFX). Oil prices have bounced more than 150 percent off of December 2008 lows but inventory levels remain at historically high levels despite a healing global economy. However, Goldman Sachs says robust 2010 oil demand growth will deplete these inventories over the next 12-to-18 months and diminishing production rates in key areas around the world will create a supply/demand imbalance. The above chart shows the decline in production from the worldrsquo;s top 230 projects. After peaking in 2009, production from these projects is set to fall for the next several years. Excluding OPEC countries (right chart), the decline rates quadruple from 2007 to 2012 (est). Over that time period, non-OPEC production is expected to fall by 2.5 million barrels per day. Only Brazil, Canada and the former countries of the Soviet Union are expected to see production growth. One of ...

There's a very interesting article on euobserver.com about Russia's attempts to re-brand itself as a benign global power in the eyes of Brussels.  The piece reports that news agency Ria-Novosti has apparently engaged the services of low-profile PR consultancy RJI Companies to assist it in softening Russia's image in Europe, in order to justify it having a large say in global affairs.  Apparently a sub-section of this campaign revolves around Stalin rehabilitation and a Soviet makeover:Russian news agency Ria Novosti is rolling out a new public relations campaign in the political capital of the European Union which, according to sources in the PR industry, aims to justify Russia's great power ambitions and improve the image of Joseph Stalin....

In this video clip, James Corbert of thecorbertreport.com interviews Gerald Clemete of TrensReseach.com on the lie of the US economic landscape. “There  is no economic recovery - it’s a cover-up,” says Celente.

The following on Celente via Wikipipedia:

Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is a United States trend forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Celente has described himself as a “political atheist” and “citizen of the world.”

An article in the Washington Times has claimed “Celente’s accurate forecasts include the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the 1997 Asian currency crash” and “the 2007 subprime mortgage scandal.” His forecasts since 1993 have included predictions about terrorism, economic collapses and war. More recent forecasts involve fascism in the United States, food riots and tax revolts.

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The Nord Stream pipeline is back in the news this week, and unfortunately it's not main stream press reviews of Grigory Pasko's documentary.  The Financial Times was carrying a three-frame photo in its special Russia business pull-out section of Vladimir Putin walking by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at an energy summit giving him a high five, while the Andrew Kramer at the New York Times had the longer investigative piece, which is attracting a lot of attention.  One little detail I noticed in the Kramer piece:

But officials in Central and Eastern Europe fear that while profits from the pipeline, a joint venture between Gazprom and a trio of German and Dutch companies, will flow to Russian suppliers and German utilities, the long trod-upon countries once under the Soviet umbrella will become more vulnerable to energy blackmail.

Such tactics are hardly without precedent. A

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Finrosforum has translated and posted the opinion article/open letter by the dissident journalist Alexander Podrabinek, which eventually prompted death threats and harassment by the Nashi, driving him into hiding.

One does not need to blame the owners of the café; their actions are understandable, given that they surely want to hold on to their business. The actions of the authorities in Moscow, who are dizzy with praise to Stalin, do not warrant any comment. I would, however, like to say a few words to the veterans who wrote the complaint [against the café sign].

You are mistaken when you think that you have monopolised patriotism, love for Russia, and concern for her future. You are mistaken when you think that you have earned a well-deserved and honourable rest. You are mistaken when you think that you are held in high public esteem.

This belief is something that you were instilled

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Not much happened yesterday. The Dow fell 47 points. The newspapers attributed the reversal to surprisingly low consumer confidence numbers. Apparently, consumers aren’t so sure this crisis is over. As we reported yesterday, they’re saving money… maybe even at an 8% rate.

Oil didn’t move yesterday. Neither did gold.

The Wall Street Journal reported that markets were reacting to “mixed data”.

That is to say, some reports were encouraging. Others were not. It was as if one weather forecaster called for a blizzard. The other for sunny skies and warm temperatures. Investors didn’t know how to dress.

Among the dark clouds was an item on the falloff in tax revenues. States are having a hard time balancing their books, because their tax receipts are declining. The WSJ reports that they are running 17% below last year.

Since states cannot print money, they’re forced to make cutbacks – typically reducing hours worked per employee as

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