Houston, Texas, April 1, 2008 - A fifth straight down month for equities matches the longest losing streak since 1980. Despite cash having another very strong month and bonds slightly up, the investment grade U.S. capital markets had their third straight losing month ending March at $31.9 trillion on a loss of 0.95%.

Equities finished March at $15.0 trillion, down 3.60%. This is 17.41% off the value at the end of October, 2007, a cumulative loss of over $3.1 trillion since that time. The equities were reduced to a 47.05% share of the investment grade U.S. capital markets, their lowest portion since April, 2003. Previously, the only five month straight negative stretch since the end of 1979 was during the months of June to October, 1990. The cumulative losses then were nearly $540 billion, but accounted for a 17.93% decline from the value at the end of May, 1990.

The markets for commercial paper and Treasury bills continued to lead the stampede into cash as they combined to account for most of the increase in the liquidity sector. The size of the commercial paper market increased nearly 12% to $1.7 trillion. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continued its dramatic reduction in T-bill holdings with its largest monthly selloff ever, reducing its holdings by nearly $76 billion and contributing to making the market for T-bills surpass $1 trillion for the first time. The net result of activity in the liquidity markets was an increase of 3.06% to $7.38 trillion. The 23.15% portion of the total capital markets is the highest percentage for the liquidity sector since February, 1991.

For bonds, the change was again measured in just a few basis points as the market for investment grade fixed income securities with a maturity greater than one year increased by only 0.39% to $9.51 trillion. This marked the third consecutive month with a change of less than one percent either way, the fourth in the past five months. Bonds now account for 29.80% of the U.S. investment grade capital markets. A year ago the $31.4 trillion investment grade U.S. capital markets had equity, liquidity, and bond market proportions of 54.05%, 18.06%, and 27.89% respectively.

Dorchester's flagship index, CPMKTS^sm 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 component 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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