Products February 19, 2008

SEC Adds Financial Explorer Site to Investor Info Tools

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a Web site on Friday that enables investors to probe the financial data of a select group of companies.
Reported by

With the Financial Explorer site, users can launch interactive charts and diagrams, including “atomic models,” to represent data such as current assets, long-term investments, and goodwill for companies that have signed on to the SEC’s interactive data effort, Reuters reports. Users can also compare earnings, expenses, cash flows, assets, and liabilities for companies in the same industry.

The site is currently limited to the 74 companies involved in the agency’s pilot program, which include General Electric, Microsoft, and United Technologies, the news report said.

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The SEC has launched other online viewers that use data derived from XBRL (extensible business reporting language), with which electronic tags much like bar codes can be attached to each piece of financial data.

The Financial Explorer site is located here.

Products February 19, 2008

SPDR International Dividend ETF Kicks Off Trading

State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) announced that the SPDR S&P International Dividend exchange traded-fund (ETF) began trading on the American Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
Reported by

SSgA said the SPDR S&P International Dividend ETF seeks to track the S&P International Dividend Opportunities Index, which includes 100 tradable, exchange-listed stocks from around the world that offer high dividend yields.

The stocks included in this index must have a minimum total market capitalization of $1.5 billion, a three-month average daily value traded greater than $10 million, and must have traded at least 300,000 shares for each of the preceding six months, according to the company.

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Additionally, for inclusion in the index, the stocks must have positive five-year earnings growth and profitability as measured by positive earnings per share over the latest 12-month period. The ETF’s expense ratio will be 0.45%.

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