The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is the national association representing the real estate finance industry, an industry that employs more than 500,000 people in virtually every community in the country. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., MBA invests in communities across the nation by ensuring the continued strength of the nation's residential and commercial real estate markets; expanding homeownership and extending access to affordable housing to all Americans and supporting financial literacy efforts.
Make no mistake about it; we are an organization dedicated to helping our members do their business. We actively advocate for our members, and have done so for nearly a century. We have seen the real estate finance industry evolve into one of the strongest and most sophisticated of global markets.
We promote fair and ethical lending practices and foster professional excellence among real estate finance employees through a wide range of educational programs and a variety of publications. We have over 3,000 member companies, including all elements of real estate finance: mortgage companies, mortgage brokers, commercial banks, thrifts, life insurance companies and others in the mortgage lending field.
We provide up-to-the minute news and information to our members so they are better able to meet the needs of their customers. We host a variety of conferences and meetings that provide our members with the strategic tools, industry trends and resources they need to advance their business.
Our investment in America's communities includes the time, service and hard work of mortgage bankers in virtually every aspect of real estate finance, in every community. We are the Mortgage Bankers Association.
FIDELITY REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR GROUP (FRIAG)
Fidelity is the second largest provider of custody and brokerage services to the registered investment advisor marketplace, with over $137 billion in assets on behalf of more than 2,700 advisors as of June 30, 2005. The choice of advisors who value independence and partnership, Fidelity provides access to a flexible, open technology environment, extensive practice management resources, and specialized wealth management investments and services; -- all backed by the unwavering, long-term commitment of a private company. Dedicated relationship professionals work consultatively to help advisors choose from a wide array of products and services -- both Fidelity and non-Fidelity -- ensuring solutions that are in the best interests of their clients and make the most sense for their business.
Zacks Investment Research is a Chicago based firm with over 24 years of experience in providing institutional and individual investors with the analytical tools and financial information necessary to the success of their investment process.
Founded in 1978, Zacks began processing, organizing and evaluating research produced by US brokerage firms. Today Zacks receives daily electronic data feeds and printed research reports on over 10,000 companies from over 185 brokerage firms, produced by more than 3,200 analysts amounting to over 500,000 pages of brokerage research. In addition, ZIR records 25,000 earnings estimate revisions and changes in broker recommendations weekly. This information is made available through institutional, and non-institutional product lines and web sites, as well as our own www.zacks.com, and www.zacksadvisor.com
Zacks' early contribution to investment analysis was the discovery that earnings per share estimate revisions are the most powerful force affecting stock prices, which gave birth to the Zacks Indicator. This, along with being the first to calculate consensus EPS estimates of quarterly earnings (1981), and to create the concept of EPS surprises, as well as the first to analyze price response to EPS surprises placed Zacks among the top innovating pioneers in the industry.
As one of the top market data and proprietary investment model providers to the buy-side, sell-side, and individual investor community, Zacks includes among its clients: Bear Stearns, Legg Mason, ValueLine, Townsend Analytics, Morningstar, H & R Block, Reuters, Bloomberg, Thomson Financial's BGMI, Multex, SEI, Quicken, Hilliard Lyons, Bank of America, Fortune, Microsoft Money and HarrisDirect.
Zacks' renown for its' comprehensive product line, expertise, flexibility, and personal service, make it the vendor of choice for firms servicing institutional, and individual investors. As we approach our 25th anniversary we look forward to another quarter century as an innovative, established industry benchmark.