The
Western Michigan Business Index was created to track the
stock performance of companies headquartered in Western Michigan.
For the purposes of the index, the region consists
of Muskegon, Kent, Ionia, Ottawa, Allegan, Barry, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun,
Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, and Branch counties, and the city of Charlotte in
Eaton County.
The inception date of this index for pricing and initial company selection was
Dec. 31, 2004. The initial index was made up of 19 publicly traded companies
which trade on national exchanges, plus one company which trades OTC, which was
included due to its market cap of nearly $100 million. Each index component also
had a minimum market cap of $15 million as of Dec. 31, 2004. The index was created
as an equally weighted index, allowing for it to track the investment performance
of each of the included companies without being subject to the unintended biases
of market-weighted or price-weighted indexes. As of the inception date, the initial
dollar value of the index was set to $100,000 and the index was set at 1,000.
Each component of the index was given an equal value of $5,000, or 5 percent
of the total index.
The composition of the index will be reviewed at least quarterly, and changes
to the components of the index will be made, if necessary, to account for IPOs,
mergers and acquisitions, and other occurrences and events which may cause changes
to the trading of companies located in our target area. Any addition or subtraction
of an index component will be offset by the addition or subtraction of an additional
company. Any company added to the index will be given a weight of 5 percent of
the index as of the day on which it is added.
The index has been built to account for stock splits, stock and cash dividends,
spin-offs, and return of capital distributions. All cash dividends issued by
one of the component companies are reinvested in the issuer.
Changes to the index components since inception: none.
Disclosures: Additional information is available upon request.
The information and statistical data contained herein have been obtained from
sources we believe to be reliable, but in no way are warranted by us as to accuracy
or completeness. We do not undertake to advise you as to any changes in our figures
or our views. This is not a solicitation of any order to buy or sell. Past performance
is no guarantee of future results.
Stifel Financial Corp. is the parent company of Stifel,
Nicolaus & Company,
Incorporated, a full-service regional brokerage and investment banking
firm established in 1890 and based in St. Louis, Missouri.
The company
provides securities brokerage,
investment banking, trading, investment advisory, and related financial
services to individual investors, professional money
managers, businesses, and municipalities.
