Of the globe's 40000 publicly traded businesses, 77 percent are situated on foreign soil, a pretty good sign that you will find compelling investment opportunities beyond the United States.

Viewed another way, fifty-one percent of the world's $38 trillion total market capitalization belongs to the international arena. US mutual funds hold $491 billion in international investments.

With a lot of potential investments outside the United States, investing internationally becomes an excellent strategy to diversify an equity portfolio. Some people contend that there's an increasing correlation in performance between the United States and international markets.

But while world markets typically have a tendency to react similarly to news or developments developing around the globe, with time, international and domestic markets tend to behave differently, helping to smooth out the ride in a diversified portfolio.

Consider the performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe, Australia and Far East Index, which maps the progress of stocks in developed markets located in Europe, Australia and the Far East, as opposed to the S&P 500, considered representative of the broader United States stock market.

When one may be going strong, the other tends to lag behind, and that has been the case going back as far as 1970. In addition, if the MSCI EAFE outperforms the S&P 500, it has done so by a more significant margin than when performances are reversed.

In fact, during the last decade, the United States stock market has never been the leader in the global investment industry. Top performance has been the exclusive domain of international indices during that time, and the profits of the S&P 500 occasionally have lagged those of international peers by wide margins.

Global funds invest about half in the United States and half in the rest of the world, making them a smart way for an individual with little or no experience in international investing to test the waters. A fantastic example is American Century Global Growth, whose managers scour the world for the best growth investment opportunities for the fund's shareholders.

You should look at the fund's investment objectives, risks, extra charges and expenses very carefully before you invest. Find out what their views are on going public with a company by browsing: companies go public or company go public.

The fund's prospectus, which can be obtained by calling or visiting American Century's Web site, contains this and other information regarding the fund and should be read thoroughly before investing.

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