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The total equity market capitalization of public companies globally is around $42 trillion.^ The U.S. represents about 39% of the world’s equity market capitalization. The U.S. economy represents about 21% of world’s economic output.* That means that the majority of world’s investment opportunities lie outside the U.S. When we are building investment portfolios for our clients we look for the best companies in their respective industries no matter what country their global headquarters may reside. We believe an investor’s core portfolio should be made up of a group the world’s best global companies through a combination of stocks, preferred stocks and bonds. In the U.S., we are particularly fortunate that many of the world’s best companies have taken steps to make their listings available to U.S. investors. Although, the world has become increasingly global we are still limited in our ability gather the all of the necessary information to make good investment decisions for some foreign securities. As a result, we rely on investment managers that are on the ground in places like Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America to augment what we can do for our client’s from our corner of the world.

^ Source: World Federation of Exchanges, September 2008.

* Source: imf.org (as of 2007)