JPMorgan Launches U.S. Index for Inflation-Linked Government Bonds

Business Wire, June 21, 2004

NEW YORK -- JPMorgan announced today the launch of a new U.S. government inflation-linked bond (TIPS) index to provide investors with a benchmark for inflation-linked portfolios.

The JPMorgan U.S. Tips Index, or JUSTINE, is a total return index that measures the performance of the TIPS market. The index contains U.S. government issued inflation-linked bonds, where bond payments are linked to the underlying CPI-U index. Corporate or quasi-government securities are not included. The return from holding the underlying bonds is inflation protected to provide investors with a real total return. In line with other JPMorgan Government indices, coupons are reinvested into the index as soon as they are paid and the JUSTINE index is rebalanced on the first business day of the month.

Earlier this year, JPMorgan launched its first inflation-linked bond index called ELSI, which measures the total return of EUR -denominated government inflation linked bonds. Inflation-linked indices for other markets, including the UK, Sweden and Canada, will follow. This family of inflation-linked indices will complement JPMorgan's well established and highly popular family of conventional government bond indices (JPM GBI Global index, JPM EMU index, JPM GBI Broad index).

Francis Diamond, European fixed income analyst at JPMorgan said: "JUSTINE represents one of the most liquid inflation-linked bond markets in the world and caters to investors who are hungry for assets that provide a known real return. The launch of JUSTINE is part of JPMorgan's strategy of developing a global family of liquid and transparent inflation -linked bond indices."

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $801 billion and operations in more than 50 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers and businesses, financial transaction processing, investment management, private banking and private equity. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase is headquartered in New York and serves more than 30 million consumer customers nationwide, and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients. Information about JPMorgan Chase is available on the internet at www.jpmorganchase.com.