The Russell Asia Pacific Index Returned +6.0pct YTD as of July 31st Including a +1.3pct Return in July

03-Aug-2012 Intellasia | Marketwire | 9:58 AM

The Russell Asia Pacific Index returned +6.0 percent year-to-date as of July 31st, including a +1.3 percent return in July.

For the year-to-date, the Financial Services (+15.0%), Healthcare (+12.5%) and Consumer Staples (+11.5%) sectors have led within the Index, while Energy (-0.4%) and Materials & Processing (-5.4%) sectors have shown the weakest relative performance.

For July, the Financial Services (+3.8%), Healthcare (+4.0%) and Consumer Staples (+2.6%) sectors have also shown the strongest performance within the Index, while the Producer Durables (-0.7%) and Consumer Discretionary (-0.8%) sectors have shown the weakest performance.

“Given the current market environment of risk aversion globally, it is no surprise that defensive areas of the market like Healthcare and Consumer Staples have been among the best performing sectors within the Russell Asia Pacific Index,” said Sarah Lien, Senior Research Analyst for Russell Investments. “It is particularly interesting to see the Financial Services sector doing well, as it represents 30 percent of the index and, therefore, tends to drive returns. This is a departure from 2011, when Financial Services stocks in the APAC index performed quite poorly.”

Russell Asia Pacific Index Returns

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YTD-2012

Index July 2012 As of July 31st

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Russell Asia Pacific Index 1.3% 6.0%

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YTD-2012

Russell Asia Pacific Index Sector July 2012 As of July 31st

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Consumer Discretionary -0.8% 4.5%

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Consumer Staples 2.6% 11.7%

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Energy 2.3% -0.4%

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Financial Services 3.8% 15.0%

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Healthcare 4.0% 12.5%

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Materials & Processing -0.3% -5.4%

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Producer Durables -0.7% 1.4%

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Technology -0.5% 3.6%

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Utilities 2.1% 6.1%

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The Russell Global Index includes more than 10,000 securities in 48 countries and covers 98 percent of the investable global market. All securities in the benchmark are classified according to size, region, country and sector. Daily Returns for the main components are available here: http://www.russell.com/indexes/data/daily_total_returns_global.asp

Disclaimer: http://www.russell.com/indexes/about/index_alerts.asp#disclaimer

For further information contact:

Lauren Goble

lauren@ryanfin.com

+852 9703 9161