My wife and I attended a friend’s wedding in the French town of Quimper last month, a delightful experience underpinned by a genuine sense of celebration.

Of course, there were similarities between weddings much closer to home. Most guests, fuelled by copious quantities of alcohol, had a great time, as they would here, and readers will be delighted to know that disco classics such as YMCA and Night Fever (replete with essential arm movements) appear to form as crucial part of French wedding celebrations as they do at home.

Yet while the night was young, I spoke with our friend’s new father-in-law, an ex-rugby man who owns a small manufacturing company. He was deeply concerned about the euro’s weakness and the effect it will have on the French economy.

Despite the mind-boggling events in Greece, I ventured to monsieur that it did not appear to be getting much weaker against sterling.

That, he replied, was because sterling too was weak, especially against the US dollar, and the plight of both European currencies was likely to get worse, because the state of public finances across the continent is atrocious.

Of course, he was right. Both sterling and the euro are likely to remain in the dollar’s shadow for some time, but does this create an opportunity for sterling-denominated investors? Perhaps.

If we assume the dollar will continue to appreciate against sterling, non-US companies generating significant chunks of their profits in dollars will benefit as earnings are converted back into pounds.

In addition, if these enterprises export significant quantities of their goods to the US, they will become cheaper in dollar terms, a factor likely to assist sales growth.

At present, more than 50 per cent of the profits made by FTSE 100 companies is generated either in dollars or in currencies pegged to it — such as China's yuan or Saudi Arabia’s riyal.

In fact, despite the parlous state of the British economy, this is one of the principle reasons why the FTSE index has performed so well over the past 12 months— its growth has been fuelled by dollar earnings.

Does this suggests that investors should be snapping up dollar-earning shares as sterling continues to weaken? Not quite.

Why? Well, even if a British firm’s profits benefit from a significant currency boost as a result of a weaker pound, it does not necessarily prevent investors from placing a lower valuation on those earnings because they are deemed to be temporary.

In other words, it is important to ‘see through’ a company’s profits and rake out the impact of any favourable currency appreciation.

A fine example occurred a couple of months ago when Pearson, the newspaper publisher, reported a 17 per cent rise in annual income. When this figure was adjusted to take account of currency fluctuations however, turnover had risen by a more modest four per cent.

Nevertheless, companies such as builders merchant Wolseley, well-placed to benefit from any prolonged upsurge in the US housing market, generates a large part of its income from the States. Others, including National Grid (with a 5.4 per cent dividend yield) and GlaxoSmithKline (4.8 per cent) derive a big chunk of their profits in the US.

Investors who expect sterling and the euro to remain weak may wish to give serious thought to benefiting from the dollar-denominated performance of FTSE-listed companies whose shares they can still buy in pounds.