WASHINGTON, D.C.///October 4, 2007///In two weeks, the “Black Monday” stock market crash of 1987 will mark its 20^th anniversary. As that date draws near, leading financial advisors are cautioning U.S. investors against giving in to the fears and trepidations that such a milestone can trigger, particularly in the wake of the rollercoaster stock market ride of this past July and August.

In a news conference organized today by the Zero Alpha Group (ZAG), three top U.S. financial advisors -- Glenn Kautt, president, chairman and chief investment officer, The Monitor Group, Sterling, VA., Kimberly Sterling, president, Resource Consulting Group, Orlando, FL., and Ed Green, partner, Foster Group, West Des Moines, IA. – explained why investors should resist the anxiety associated with a dreaded anniversary. In response to questions from clients and a recognition of the need to address investor fears that may not end up getting articulated other than through panic, the financial advisors detailed several different ways that the financial world of 2007 differs from and resembles that of 1987.

Glenn Kautt, president, chairman and chief investment officer, The Monitor Group, Sterling, VA., said: “It is entirely normal for investors – or any human being for that matter – to reflect on a dark date as it draws close. Americans have done this over and over again with such anniversaries as Pearl Harbor and 9/11. When it comes to the 20th anniversary of ‘Black Monday,’ the trick is to get out of the trap of obsessing about every up and down in the market. You are much better off framing a long-term plan and then sticking with it, leaving the stock market to gyrate as it does now on a regular basis. In the final analysis, that is the best prescription for anyone suffering from anxiety about the return of ‘Black Monday.’”

HOW DO 1987 AND 2007 COMPARE?

“Black Monday” is the term commonly used to describe the date of Monday, October 19, 1987. This was the day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plummeted 22.68 percent, reflecting a decline in the value of market holdings of roughly half a trillion dollars. The “Black Monday” crash was the second largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history, coming just short of the 24.39 percent drop on December 12, 1914.

Sterling, Green and Kautt summarized the following differences and similarities between 1987 and 2007:

DIFFERENCE: Many more individuals are responsible for their own investments now than was the case in 1987. On the plus side, the sheer number of people in the market through mutual fund investments that use buy and hold strategies in their 401(k) investments means that markets tend to be somewhat more stable than would otherwise be the case. However, more individual investors also means more people chasing fads and hurting themselves by jumping in and out of the market without an overarching strategy.

Kimberly Sterling, president, Resource Consulting, Orlando, FL., said: “More risk is out there now than in 1987, but that doesn’t mean that investors have to lose sleep over it. The rule of thumb on this point is always the same: ‘Don’t wreck your long-term plan by stressing about short-term risk.’ An additional spin you can put on this is that if you are stressed today about your investments in the market, it probably means that your investment policy is too aggressive. You should become more conservative now while the market is up. Pulling back as a panic response when the market is down is literally the financial equivalent of kicking yourself when you already are down.”

SIMILARITY: Investors are no smarter today than they were 20 years ago.

Ed Green, partner, Foster Group, West Des Moines, IA., explained: “The greatest similarity I see between 1987 and 2007 has little to do with the externals -- market valuations, economic conditions, political considerations, etc. It has everything to do with internals -- the human nature of investors. In the intervening 20 years, we’ve seen incredible increases in computing power, speed of communication, research devoted to studying stock price data, and so on. But we still have no better sense of how a stock will perform. And that just doesn’t make sense to many investors who think more power and more information should mean more certainty. Thinking that someone somewhere must have a real handle on the market makes these investors vulnerable to accept and act on the prognostications of various ‘market strategists’ as though they were prophets. Now, even more than 20 years ago, investors want to find certainty in things that are inherently uncertain. That means more people making a lot of very expensive mistakes.”

DIFFERENCE: Safety measures have been implemented to stop trading if certain triggers are hit. Now there are trading restrictions in place to prevent computer analytics from driving the prices down automatically.

SIMILARITY: Computers may still be playing a big role in driving the markets. In the wake of 1987’s “Black Monday,” many pointed the finger of blame at program trading. (Program trading uses computers to engage in arbitrage and portfolio insurance strategies.) In an interesting parallel, the sharp market downturn in July-August 2007 is linked in one new study to the buying patterns of quantitative hedge funds. Andrew W. Lo, professor of finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Clifford S. Asness, of AQR Capital Management LLC in New York, theorize that quantitative hedge funds played a big role in aggravating the summer 2007 market downturn.

DIFFERENCE: In both 1987 and 2007, a sharp upswing in the market preceded a sharp decline. Markets were up strongly from 1982 through the summer of 1987, much like the most recent period of 2003 through the early summer of 2007. But that parallel doesn’t hold up very well on closer inspection. In comparative terms, the market was up more in 1987 before “Black Monday” than in the period leading up to October 2007. In 1987, the stock market peaked in August 1987, but in 2007 the initial highs were reached in July and then the market fell off sharply in August before a robust September-October recovery that ended up topping the record-setting levels of July. By contrast, the 1987 market ran into trouble in August and then drifted down into “Black Monday.”

DIFFERENCE: World markets are more likely to all take a hit when one major market crashes because the world is “flatter” now. Even asset classes that may not have a correlation will follow the wave of market panic around the world. The flip side of this linkage is that foreign markets in developing nations such as India and China now are thriving as never before. One popular index tracking emerging markets is up by nearly a quarter since Aug. 16, the date on which the index hit a record low.

Kautt said: “One big change from 20 years ago is that the ‘world is flatter’ in terms of electronics, politics and markets. Because the access to new information is much quicker, markets respond and react more quickly. This is a correlated behavior that we seek to avoid in our portfolio design by using different asset classes in a deliberate and strategic fashion. Thoughtful diversification, not just ‘buying the whole market’ can dampen volatility, taking some of the sting out of a world marketplace that now moves much more in unison than it did 20 years ago. The bottom line is that a flatter world can be a more volatile world for investors – but less so if they adopt and stick with a long-term strategy.”

ABOUT ZAG

Founded in 1995, the Zero Alpha Group (http://www.zeroalphagroup.com) is an international network of independent investment advisory firms that manage a total of more than $7 billion in assets. The nine current members of the Zero Alpha Group –- including The Monitor Group, Foster Group and Resource Consulting -- are committed to providing objective, long-term private wealth management solutions to investors, focusing on asset allocation and a structured, quantitative approach to investing. The firms in the Zero Alpha Group network share a common philosophy about investing and client service - a commitment to passive, tax-managed investment strategies while providing an independent financial planning solution for investors.

CONTACT: Info@ZeroAlphaGroup.com

CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of this news event will be available on the Web at http://www.zeroalphagroup.com as of 7 p.m. EDT/4 p.m. PDT on October 4, 2007.