Palladian Research launches The FIG Report

New York, NY, October 9, 2003 - Palladian Research, LLC, an independent equity research firm, announced today the launch of The FIG Report. The FIG Report is the first of a series of monthly research products from Palladian focusing on the financial services industry. It identifies long and short investment opportunities based on a particular theme affecting financial services organizations. Some of these themes could include macroeconomic factors, geo-political issues, regulatory changes, structural modifications within particular sub-segments of the financial services industry, or just opportunities that the firm believes may have been overlooked or misconstrued.

The inaugural issues of The FIG Report are entitled "Rates of Interest", and examine certain aspects of the current interest rate environment and what they mean for financial services stocks. "As a guide for our outlook on investment opportunities within the financial services sector, we looked at the historical correlation between the 10-year Treasury rate and the S&P Financial Index," says The FIG Report author, Amar Mehta. Mehta, a Wall Street veteran with both sell and buy side stock picking experience, points to other timely rates of interest such as "mortgage rates and the subsequent implications for the re-finance cycle and consumer credit quality as well as the steepness of the yield curve and its implications for stocks across a range of sub-sectors in the financials group." In addition to mortgage companies and credit card companies, The FIG Report discusses investments in title insurance, broker/dealers and other non-traditional financial institutions.

Melissa Eisenstat, President of Palladian Research, said, "We are excited about the addition of The FIG Report to the Palladian Research product portfolio. Like all of Palladian's research, The FIG Report's broad approach to the analysis of the financial services industry and stock picking presents a different way of analyzing and valuing financial institutions and their components."

About Amar Mehta
Amar Mehta has over 7 years of experience analyzing the Financial Services industry. Mr. Mehta started his career at Citicorp, in the firm’s two-year analyst program. He joined Oppenheimer & Co. in 1997 as an Equity Analyst after graduating from Columbia Business School. Subsequently, he has worked on the buy side at Fred Alger & Co. and more recently had been in the employ of a small hedge fund managing a Financial Institutions sector portfolio. In addition to his MBA from Columbia, he holds BS in Computer Science from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science.

About Palladian Research
Palladian Research provides institutional money managers with stock advice primarily on US companies by identifying trends and investment opportunities that span what are often considered disparate sectors. Palladian analysts identify trends in different sectors, be they industries like financial services, the industrials, healthcare, or energy; or investment benchmarks like the S&P 500. They identify the drivers of a set of stocks within a particular sector, and make long and/or short calls accordingly. Stock recommendations are included in concise monthly reports. Palladian currently publishes four separate, monthly research products and has 35 institutional clients representing a range of investment styles including mutual funds and hedge funds.

Contact
Melissa Eisenstat
President
Palladian Research, LLC
(212) 798-1476
m.eisenstat@palladianresearch.com