Products January 25, 2008

SSgA Announces Launch of Long-Short Strategy Mutual Fund

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), the investment management arm of State Street Corporation, has launched the SSgA Core Edge Equity Fund, a long-short (130/30) mutual fund that seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation over the course of an economic cycle.
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Edge strategies, State Street’s version of short-extension or 130/30 approaches, introduce a limited amount of short selling in order to take advantage of a negative viewpoint in the stock ranking process, while providing capital for additional long positions of the same magnitude to maintain 100% exposure to a benchmark, SSgA explained in a company announcement.

The SSgA Core Edge Equity Fund will invest its assets, including proceeds received from short sales of securities, primarily in large and medium-capitalization securities – the underlying valuation or business fundamentals of which indicates prospects for growth. The fund plans to short sell the securities of companies with apparent deteriorating business fundamentals and/or valuations.

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“The SSgA Core Edge Equity Fund offers mutual fund investors access to State Street’s unmatched experience as a disciplined manager of long-short equity strategies for institutional clients,” said James Ross, senior managing director at State Street Global Advisors, in the announcement. “By removing the long-only constraint from the stock selection process, the Core Edge Equity Fund is designed to provide an increase in expected returns with a risk level that is moderately higher than that of the S&P 500 Index.’

More information can be obtained at www.ssga.com.

The Markets January 25, 2008

New S&P Indexes Track Stocks With Dividend Opportunities

Standard&Poor’s has launched the S&P Dividend Opportunities Indices, two new indexes designed to “provide investors with exposure to high yielding stocks throughout the world.″
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According to a press release, the S&P Global Dividend Opportunities Index and the S&P International Dividend Opportunities Index are designed to serve as alpha generating indices for income seeking investors.

Both indexes are comprised of 100 tradable, exchange-listed common stocks from across the world that offer high dividend yields. The S&P International Dividend Opportunities Index does not include U.S. domiciled securities.

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The universe from which the S&P Dividend Opportunities Indices is drawn from is the S&P/Citigroup Broad Market Index, an index that includes all dividend paying common stocks and American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) listed on eligible exchanges around the world. Derivatives, structured products, over-the-counter listings, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are not eligible.

“The launch of these two indices underscores Standard & Poor’s commitment to producing alpha generating strategy indices with a methodology designed to provide returns over and above traditional benchmark indices,” said Tim Eisenhauer, Vice President of Standard & Poor’s Index Services, in a press release.

For more information on the S&P Dividend Opportunities Indices, check out http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices and click on “Strategy Indices” in the left navigation tab.

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