Investment Policy Notes December 16, 2015 - December 2015

S&P Dow Jones Indices

Description

shareholders, employees or agents (collectively S&P Parties) do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or availability of the Content. S&P Parties are not responsible for any errors or omissions (negligent or otherwise), regardless of the cause, for the results obtained from the use of the Content, or for the security or maintenance of any data input by the user. The Content is provided on an “as is” basis. S&P PARTIES DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR USE, FREEDOM FROM BUGS, SOFTWARE ERRORS OR DEFECTS, THAT THE CONTENT’S FUNCTIONING WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR THAT THE CONTENT WILL OPERATE WITH ANY SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION.

In no event shall S&P Parties be liable to any party for any direct, indirect, incidental, exemplary, compensatory, punitive, special or consequential damages, costs, expenses, legal fees, or losses (including, without limitation, lost income or lost profits and opportunity costs or losses caused by negligence) in connection with any use of the Content even if advised of the possibility of such damages. may differ among credit rating agencies. Ratings assigned by other credit rating agencies may reflect more or less favorable opinions of creditworthiness than ratings assigned by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. For more detailed descriptions of disclosures and disclaimers such as investment risk and country conditions, please see: http://www.spcapitaliq.com/disclaimers/spias-investmentadvisory-services Copyright © 2015 by Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, LLC. Redistribution, reproduction and/or photocopying in whole or in part is prohibited without written permission. All rights reserved. STANDARD & POOR’S, S&P and S&P 500 are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC. CAPITAL IQ is a registered trademark of Capital IQ, Inc.

S&P CAPITAL IQ is a trademark of Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC. Based on a universe of funds provided to SPIAS, SPIAS may include in a model portfolio or substitution list, if applicable, otherwise present as an investment option and/or recommend for investment certain funds to which S&P licenses certain intellectual property or otherwise has a financial interest, including exchangetraded funds whose investment objective is to substantially replicate the returns of a proprietary S&P Dow Jones Indices, such as the S&P 500. SPIAS includes these funds in models, otherwise presents them as an investment option and/or recommends them for investment based on asset allocation, sector representation, liquidity and other factors; however, SPIAS has a potential conflict of interest with respect to the inclusion of these funds. In cases where S&P is paid fees that are tied to the amount of assets that are invested in the fund or the volume of trading activity in the fund, investment in the fund will generally result in S&P receiving compensation in addition to the subscription fees or other compensation for services rendered by SPIAS. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services does not contribute to or participate in the provision of investment advice and or model portfolios.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services may receive compensation for its ratings and certain analyses, normally from issuers or underwriters of securities or from obligors. S&P reserves the right to disseminate its opinions and analyses. S&P's public ratings and analyses are made available on its Web sites, www.standardandpoors.com (free of charge), and www.ratingsdirect.com and www.globalcreditportal.com (subscription), and may be distributed through other means, including via S&P publications and third-party redistributors. Additional information about our ratings fees is available at: www.standardandpoors.com/usratingsfees. GMI IAS may consider research and other information from affiliates in making its investment recommendations. The investment policies of certain model portfolios specifically state that among the information GMI IAS will consider in evaluating a security are the credit ratings assigned by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.

GMI IAS does not consider the ratings assigned by other credit rating agencies. Credit rating criteria and scales 3 .