Marketwire Joins With Cisco Systems, AMD, FD Ashton Partners, and Atlantic Equities in Offering Insight Into Best Investor Relations Practices

Market Wire, June, 2008

Marketwire, Inc., a full-service newswire and communications workflow solutions provider, joined with Cisco Systems, AMD, FD Ashton Partners, and Atlantic Equities in offering insight into the best practices of Investor Relations. Via two Marketwire-hosted seminars at the National Investor Relations Institute's Annual Conference in San Diego, Calif. on Tuesday, June 10, Marketwire spearheaded discussions to help investor relations professionals learn more about navigating today's rapidly evolving and complex trading environments as well as maximizing new media to more effectively communicate to shareholders and analysts.

With nearly 200 investor relations and communications professionals attending, the seminars allowed the panelists to share best practices and offered new strategies for balancing risk and opportunity on a number of different and important fronts in investor relations:

Seminar Details

June 10, 12:30 - 1:30 pm: "Traditional vs. New Media" Moderator: Darin Wolter, Senior Vice President, Sales - Western Region, Marketwire Panelists: Ruth Cotter, Director of Investor Relations, Advanced Micro Devices; Marilyn Mora, Manager of Investor Relations, Cisco Systems June 10, 2:00 - 3:15 pm: "Demystifying Trading Strategies and Trends" Moderator: Michael Nowlan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marketwire Panelists: Bryan Armstrong, Executive Vice President, FD Ashton Partners; Rupert Della-Porta, Chief Operating Officer, Atlantic Equities LLP Highlights / Key Facts

Regulatory changes impacting today's trading environment include Reg NMS , its European counterpart MiFID , the repeal of the " uptick rule ," and recent XBRL pronouncements , all contributing to the growth of automated and computerized trading systems: Fragmented capital markets are driving a proliferation of off-exchange trading venues such as Alternative Trading Systems (ATS) and Electronic Crossing Networks (ECNs) that are natural venues for algorithmic trading . Market participants have changed, with hedge funds spurring the initial growth in automated trading as institutional traders seek to avoid the market impact of moving large blocks of shares. Dark pools - trading volume created from institutional orders that are not available to the public - are attracting higher market share, which currently stands at between 5 to 7 percent of the market. Investor relations professionals can reach increasingly larger number of “invisible” shareholders and analysts through: Press releases and other market information can be fed into the new generation of algorithms. By strategically ordering the sequence and timing of press release dissemination, a steady stream of news eliminates information voids that create uncertainty and fuel speculative trading. The number of public companies using blogs to disclose company performance is increasing: Currently, 58 Fortune 500 companies maintain a blog on their websites, a number that has doubled from 24 a year ago. Next year that number is expected to triple or quadruple. Marketwire conducted an IR Blog Insights Survey at last year's NIRI that showed 26% of investor relations attendees strongly supported satisfying Reg FD through a blog or corporate website; four percent strongly opposed it, while 37% neither supported nor opposed the idea. Examples of companies that discuss company performance on a blog include Dell Computers' Direct2Dell , Whole Foods president John Mackey on his blog The CEO's Blog - John Mackey , and Sun Microsystems' CEO Jonathan Schwartz on his blog Jonathan's Blog .

Quote from Michael Nowlan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marketwire "Within automated trading there's an evolution occurring. Execution and order-handling algorithms and computerized trading have been around for a long time. These keep getting refined - changing and picking up in volume, etc., partially spurred on by institutional investors. What we are seeing now is the evolution of alpha-generation trading, which is really real-time consumption of information, whether that be of business releases or other market information. This is leading to real-time trading strategies that are being created and executed by these machines, and it's picking up in speed. It's still in its very early days, but it's going to have a profound impact on [IRO] communication and the style of communication."

Quote from Rupert Della-Porta, Chief Operating Officer, Atlantic Equities LLP "What do dark pools mean - and should we be worried? Most hedge funds, I believe, are agnostic about your corporate strategy, and their investment decision is divorced from the fundamentals. Some though - and I would say those are going to be growing in assets and influence - do care, and they can be terrific shareholders, if somewhat demanding. I would recommend, then, that investor relations professionals decide what is noise and what is not, and focus their time accordingly. That is what I have to do as an investor, and I think it is a hopeful approach. In my view, the background noise is only going to get louder with ETFs, off-exchange trading and dark pools as they all become larger. This, I think, should leave more time for investor relations to address those who invest on opinion and fundamentals."