Zacks Analyst Interview Highlights: France Telecom, Total, Sanofi-Aventis, Royal Dutch Shell and BP

Is the economic downturn in the U.S. - aside from a lower value for the Dollar relative to the Euro - having an overall effect on the companies in your coverage?

Not really. Telecoms like France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) are not really exposed to the U.S. consumer despite their international exposure. Its U.S. exposure is very limited. In the Oils sector, apart from the dollar, there is no real impact so far, although we believe that sooner rather than later a slowdown in the U.S. will impact negatively demand for oil. So far, though, it looks like "the rest of the world" is hanging up there in terms of oil demand.

We will not get into the "decoupling theme." By this I mean whether or not the world is "U.S. consumer dependent." But we think that the U.S. is a big contributor to global aggregate demand, so later in the year we Europeans are likely to feel some pain.

What are you expecting as far as quarterly results from your companies?

I was expecting very good results from Total (NYSE: TOT), and in fact they were good, but the market has taken them slightly negatively. Anyway, we believe TOT is delivering the following:

Net income climbed to 3.6 billion euros ($5.6 billion) from 3.05 billion euros a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, changes in inventories and the value of a stake in drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA (NYSE: SNY), profit beat expectations. However, Total's profit increase lagged behind European competitor Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A) and BP Plc (NYSE: BP), which posted jumps of 25 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

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