Waltham, MA, 30 April 2008 - Global Insight, the world's leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, today released its first quarter updated findings showing that the sectors holding the most promise for U.S. stock market investors over the next nine months continue to be Healthcare, Consumer Staples, and select sectors of Industrials. The sectors with the updated worst investment potential are predicted to be in Financials, particularly real estate and banking, along with basic materials and telecommunication services, according to Global Insight's latest Stock Sector Rotation Strategy Advisory.

According to Global Insight, the Healthcare sector continues to in an overweight position relative to the sector's neutral weight in the market. While the Healthcare sector's stock price momentum has lagged behind that of other sectors during the last six months, Healthcare still supports a very reasonable dividend yield and has robust prospects for future growth. The underlying demand for the sector's products and services is less connected to swings in economic cycles and strong demand and positive pricing power for the sector help to raise the forecasted growth in Healthcare's free cash flow to very attractive levels. Similarly, when the "trailing" P/E ratio is adjusted by fast future profits growth the resulting "PEG" ratio for healthcare is very cheap compared to historical levels and compared across sectors.

The Consumer Staples sector continues to have a sizeable overweight recommendation, partly due to its reaction in a slowing economy where lower stock prices and earnings growth rate has less volatility than typically seen in other sectors. This sector has performed well on a relative basis so far in 2008, as reflected by the positive readings in the momentum indicator. While the sector P/E of 16.8% for Consumer Staples is not much lower when compared to other sectors, it is lower than typically seen in this sector. Furthermore, the increasing exposure to global markets for new demand should help keep the average forward growth of profits steady at 4.8%, which is strong enough to lower the PEG ratio to an attractive range and raise the free cash flow "turning point" indicator.

Industrials' healthy forward profit growth and relatively low P/E ratio result in one of the lowest PEG ratios compared to other sectors. Within Industrials, Global Insight favors sectors that benefit from the weak U.S. dollar, such as agriculture equipment, aircraft, and machinery that have good prospects for future profits growth. In addition, oil and gas field machinery and farm equipment will also benefit from high capital spending in the farm and energy sectors. The positive fundamental view on Industrials is also supported by strong readings in the sector's technical momentum indicator. At the same time, a slowing U.S. economy will hurt some parts of Industrials. Several segments within the Industrials sector that will be vulnerable are the automotive industry and related supply chains, construction and construction machinery, and industrial equipment.

The Information Technology sector has an equal-weight recommendation. The IT sector, led by semiconductors, hardware, and networking, outperformed other sectors in 2007, but the sector has been lagging the market in early 2008. Global Insight expects good prospects for the IT complex, both hardware and software, supported in part (as with Consumer Staples and Industrials) by good exposure to faster international growth. Even in the U.S., where investment in information processing equipment is expected to slow to 5.8% in 2008 and 4.0% in 2009, the growth in demand for IT is still at historically high levels.

In addition, IT consolidation continues as large companies acquire smaller ones to broaden their product offerings. Many software companies have strong balance sheets with significant amounts of cash. On the negative side, the dividend yield and P/E ratios are relatively unattractive in IT when compared to the other sectors, due mostly to a sharp stock price rise in 2007, but they are still appealing when compared to historical levels. Good prospects for future profits growth and free cash flow and negative readings on valuations and technical indicator provide the basis for the equal weight recommendation.

The relative view of the Energy sector is negative. While oil prices have been on a rally, hitting record levels, the updated forecast is for a peak, followed by a decline, mostly due to the slowdown in U.S. and global economic growth. As a result, Energy has one of the strongest forward profit growth expectations among all sectors for 2008, yet one of the weakest prospects for earnings growth for 2009. Also, the dividend yield for this sector is unattractive, since the payout ratios are very low and dividends have not kept pace with growth in profits during the past few years. Due to the large capital-intensive nature of long-term expansion projects underway in the Energy sector, the growth of future free cash flow will decelerate as capital spending remains strong for several years to come.

The Financial sector should continue to be hurt by weakness in housing and credit markets, write-downs of assets and economic recession. The prospects for returns from investing in the real estate sub-sector continue to be very poor, with an underweight setting indicated by both the fundamental and risk indicators. The fallout from declining real estate sales will also continue to affect areas of the financial sector, such as investment funds that are exposed to the financial credit, banks and other mortgage-related institutions that have large exposure to the real estate markets, as well as real estate brokers and developers themselves. At some point during 2008, it is expected that greater stability will be achieved, thus improving the outlook for this sector.

Global Insight's Sector Rotation Strategy is developed using the company's expert macroeconomic and industry analysis, and is part of its World Industry Service Stock Sector Benchmarks, which assists asset managers in identifying the most profitable sectors for investment in the U.S. and international stock markets.

To see the full sector rankings and for further information visit: www.globalinsight.com/SectorRotation.

Contact:
Mark Killion, CFA, MD World Industry Service, Global Insight
+610 490.2547 (mark.killion@globalinsight.com)

Natasha Muravytska, Economist, Global Insight
+610.490.2558 (natasha.muravytska@globalinsight.com)

Jim Dorsey, Media Relations, Global Insight
+781.301.9069 (jim.dorsey@globalinsight.com)

About Global Insight
Global Insight, Inc. (http://www.globalinsight.com/) is a privately held company that brought together the two most respected economic information companies in the world, DRI and WEFA. Global Insight provides the most comprehensive economic and financial information available on countries, regions and industries, using a unique combination of expertise, models, data and software within a common analytical framework to support planning and decision-making. Through the world's first same-day analysis and risk assessment service, Global Insight provides immediate insightful analysis of market conditions and key events around the world, covering economic, political, and operational factors. The company has over 3,800 clients in industry, finance, and government with revenues in excess of $105 million, over 675 employees and 25 offices in 14 countries covering North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.