Houston, Texas, September 2, 2008 - In a month where liquidity securities were down slightly and bond securities were flat, equity securities pulled out a workman like performance to put the traditional investment grade U.S. capital markets solidly on the right side of change. Reversing the trends of the two previous months, August saw the markets grow 0.55% to $32.17 trillion.

After two months of dragging the markets down, equity securities lifted the markets in August with an increase of $194 billion, 1.31% growth for the month. In a month where nearly all sectors were up, the Consumer Goods & Retail Services sector led the way with a 4.4% gain while the growth in most other sectors was between 1% and 2%. The only sour note was in the Mining & Construction sector, which includes petroleum exploration and refining companies, which was down 0.73%. Equities go into September valued at $14.95 trillion, a 46.48% share of the traditional investment grade U.S. capital markets.

Liquidity securities, composed of short-term bonds and money market instruments, dropped slightly in August with a decrease of $25 billion or 0.34%. A $103 billion increase in short-term Treasury debt (bills, bonds and notes) could not overcome decreases in the markets for certificates of deposit, commercial paper and short-term federal agency debt. August saw the market for Treasury bills increase by $90 billion, fourth largest one-month increase since 1980. The markets for certificates of deposit and commercial paper combined to drop $69 billion and federal agencies called $13 billion worth of short-term bonds while $44 billion matured in August. Liquidity securities now account for 22.58% of the traditional investment grade U.S. capital markets with a total value of $7.26 trillion.

The long-term bond markets just barely managed to stay in growth territory for the eleventh consecutive month with 0.08% change - an increase of $7.7 billion. The market for mortgage-backed securities issued by government sponsored enterprises led the way with an increase of $45 billion to $3.6 trillion and was joined by $10 billion and $5 billion gains in the markets for long-term investment grade corporate bonds and long-term federal agency bonds respectively. These gains overcame a $53 billion decrease in the market for long-term U.S. Treasury debt to bring the bond markets to $9.95 trillion or a 30.94% share of the traditional investment grade U.S. capital markets. A year ago, the markets stood at $32.58 trillion with the equity, liquidity, and bond market proportions of 54.20%, 18.05%, and 27.75% respectively.

Dorchester's flagship index, CPMKTS^sm The Capital Markets Index, is carried on The American Stock Exchange under the symbol CPMKTS, with updates every 15 seconds. The Amex also publishes the component indexes: CPMKTSE^sm The Capital Markets Equity Index, CPMKTSB^sm The Capital Markets Bond Index and CPMKTSL^sm The Capital Markets Liquidity Index.

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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