Equities Continue Losing Streak as T-Bills Reach New Records

Houston, Texas, March 3, 2008 - The equity markets marked a fourth loosing month by dropping 1.61% to $15.6 trillion, now down to 48.34% of the investment grade capital markets. Significant gains in the liquidity markets and basically flat bond markets could not offset a downturn in equity markets resulting in a second down month for the total US investment grade capital markets which ended February valued at $32.2 trillion.

With the equities having lost over $2.5 trillion in value since the end of October, 2007 the current trend is the equal in length and size of two other equity downturns in recent memory: June to September of 2001 and April to July of 2002. The longest consecutive negative streak was the five month span from June to October of 1990.

The liquidity markets, which include money market instruments and short term fixed income securities, increased by more than $205 billion to top $7 trillion for the first time. The 22.25% portion of the overall capital markets is the biggest holding for cash since March, 2003. This is largely a result of a nearly 23% increase in the market value of Treasury Bills in circulation. With the Treasury issuing $171 billion more than it redeemed in February and the Federal Reserve selling off another $5 billion of its T-Bill holdings, the Fed now holds less than 20% of the issued T-Bills for the first time since it started itemizing holdings in 2003. The combined actions of the Fed and the US Treasury resulted in the $175 billion one month increase, the largest one month gain in the total market value of Treasury Bills by over $65 billion.

As in January, the bond markets remained relatively flat, finishing up 0.22% at $9.5 trillion to account for the remaining 29.41% of the capital securities markets. The current state is a significant adjustment from a year ago when the equities were at 53.46%, bonds were at 27.97% and liquidity accounted for 18.57% of the $31.4 trillion US capital markets.

Dorchester's flagship index, CPMKTSsm The Capital Markets Index, is carried on The American Stock Exchange under the symbol CPMKTS, with data updates every 15 seconds. The Amex also publishes sub-indexes CPMKTE, CPMKTB and CPMKTL, tracking the equity, bond and liquidity markets. Dorchester utilizes market data and government statistics to adjust the weights used in calculating CPMKTS, ensuring the index accurately reflects the total return of the markets based on actual asset allocation.

About Dorchester Capital Management LLC.
Dorchester Capital Management LLC is a Houston-based company principally focused on designing financial products for the professional investment community. Dorchester’s unique approach to processing, organizing and standardizing capital markets data from the broadest variety of sources gives it a superior ability to help clients with the fundamental risk analysis questions of asset allocation and benchmarking. For additional information, please visit the company's Web site at www.cpmkts.com.

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